


Hidden in the Shadows of Tragedy

by Jade_Williams



Series: Hidden in the Shadows - The Originals [1]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguments, Betrayal, Blood, Cliffhangers, Cuddling, Death, Drinking, Elijah gets angry, Eventual Happiness, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fights, Fluff, Jokes, Klaus gets angry, Lies, Love, Magic, Mentions of Mystic Falls, Mentions of TVD characters, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Plot Twists, Profanity, Sass, Slow Burn, Smut You Can Skip, So much angst, There will be a sequel, They all deserved better, Trauma, Vampire Camille, Vampire Fights, Violence, Witches, everybody gets angry, literally death, spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2020-05-12 04:45:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 192,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19221853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Williams/pseuds/Jade_Williams
Summary: In the sixteenth century, Elizabeth Walker met Klaus Mikaelson and her life changed forever. In the five hundred years she has been alive, she has become a part of the Original family and has stood by their side in all of their wars in unbending loyalty, trust, and love. Ten years ago, she disappeared without a trace and became a prisoner to a man who practices horrific work in the name of science. When the cards finally land in her favor and she is set free, Elizabeth quickly learns that not everything is at it seems. Struggling with the lies in her past that she once believed to be true, Elizabeth and the Mikaelsons prepare to engage in a war that will force them to make tragic sacrifices. With the ghosts from her past coming back to haunt her and the threat of an ancient entity, everything will be put on the line.Published on: June 15th, 2019





	1. Thrive

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Hello! Heeeyy!  
> Before you read this chapter, I would like to let you know that this a BETA RUN! The rest of the story will be coming out chapter by chapter SOON as it is about 90% written (some chapters need to be written, refined, and finished). 
> 
> Now, for the good stuff. I was, to say the least, upset with how The Originals ended (Spoiler: Klaus, Hayley, and Elijah deserved better)... So I decided to write this story to ease my heart! I fell in love with the writing immediately and although it is not perfect because I am a struggling dyslexic writer plowing through college, I am happy with where it is so far. I kept as close to canon as I could, but I did make some major changes so my ideas can fit the story. So, please enjoy the first chapter and I hope you will stick around to read the rest. -Jade :)
> 
> Warnings, if there are any, will be placed in the chapter summary section of each chapter that requires it. 
> 
> (Any hate will be removed without question. This is a love only zone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth Walker shifts through her memories as she tries her best to cope with the current state of her life. Feeling trapped and hopeless, she sees no end in sight.

She imagines it would be rather devastating to learn that the world you live in is not the world you once thought it to be.

            A child fears the monsters under their bed and the creatures that lurk in their closets, as any young child would. When they grow, they are taught that there is no such thing as monsters under the bed. They are taught that no matter what, there are no creatures that linger in their closets that will swoop them away should they dare to go in for a clean shirt. Humans are _taught_ that the world is innocent. The only monsters in this world are the monsters they make themselves out to be. There are no monsters in the closet, there are no monsters under the bed, and no monsters are hiding in the basement. That belief is nothing short of a lie and she should know.

            There are monsters in this world. There is a plethora of them, all lurking in the shadows. As any single person walks down the street there could very well be two or three monsters watching them, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Those monsters thirst for blood and will stop at nothing to get it. They enjoy a hunt, especially ones that put up a fight. On nights in which the moon is full, free will is sacrificed to become a beast capable of things that should not be possible. Lurking in the cemeteries or local churches, there are witches and evil forces that promise to rain hell upon anyone who breaks their sacred rules. Monsters are real and it seems that the fears of the thing in the closet are not so childish after all.

            There is a choice within every person to either face those monsters in the shadow of their evil or to run away for as long as possible before it inevitably catches up with them. Elizabeth chose to face her monster. She _chose_ to embrace him with everything she had to offer and it ended in tragedy. She died because she chose to acknowledge the horrible world that she lived in once upon a time. Her humanity was taken from her because, no matter how hard she tried, she was not able to walk away from her monster or his family. However, on the night that she looked death in the eyes, she did not stay dead for long. She awoke as something new, with his blood coursing through her veins. She knew what she was. She knew she had become a monster… she was just like him.

            She could have resisted the burning urge that clouded every single thought that she had. She could have walked away with the few hours she had left in her human life. Ultimately, it came down to one realization. She was not ready to stop living. In that final choice, she traded her mortal life for one that would never end. She gave up everything so she could continue to fight. All of the things that she had been prior turned her into the person she is today. She surrendered to the monsters in her closet. All of her beliefs, her passionate love… It was all amplified and she became strong. It was a perfect life even though she lived in a house full of monsters in the heart of a beautifully tragic city. Her life was, simply put, worth living and fighting for.

            It was Christmas Eve when she disappeared. They had no idea that other monsters were watching their every move. She was living the happiest night of her life when she left for what was only supposed to be a couple of short minutes. It wasn’t until those minutes passed that they realized she was never coming back. She had been taken and to this day, she recalls just how terrified she felt on that first night. The life she knew had been taken away from her along with everything she loved. They could not find her and ten years later, her disappearance remains a mystery.

            _He gently wraps his arms around her waist as he sways them back and forth to the slow melody of the song that rings out in the room. She rests her arms on his shoulders, allowing his gentle hands to guide her. She has never been much of a dancer, but she couldn’t turn down the invitation. Her dark blue dress shimmers in the beautiful glow of the lights, catching the eyes of those around them. She smiles, lips pink, and admires the way he looks at her. She has only seen this look a handful of times, she could count them all on one hand._

_“You’re staring,” she muses softly._

_Klaus smiles softly, briefly looking away from her curious face. “You are absolutely breathtaking tonight, Elizabeth,” he compliments sincerely._

_“I had a little help from a mysterious Hybrid,” she reminds him playfully. “Without him, I may have come down here in my pajamas.”_

_Klaus laughs lightly, something she does not hear often enough. “Then let’s be grateful that the mysterious Hybrid has great taste,” he says. “Alas, you would have looked perfect either way.”_

_Elizabeth blushes deeply and she looks down at her gown, still amazed that she is wearing something so elegant. “Toot your own horn, why don’t you?”_

_Klaus suddenly pulls her body close to his and for a moment she worries that she will step on his feet, but he keeps their bodies perfectly in sync. “My horn?” He asks. “I thought we were talking about a mysterious, unnamed Hybrid.”_

_Laughing, Elizabeth lightly squeezes his arms and looks deeply into his stunning eyes that say so many words back to her. “I can see right through you, Niklaus Mikaelson. You’re not as terrible as you make yourself to be,” she confesses. "Maybe the holidays are rubbing off on you."_

_Unsure of what to say, Klaus looks down and breathes in deeply. For centuries they have run together and for some reason, she has grown the closest to him. She’s not sure what it is about Klaus that draws her in. The darkness, perhaps, and the light she sees within him. She feels alive when she is near him and at this moment, she remembers why she has stuck around for as long as she has. He has become her home._

_“You don't know what you’re saying, Elizabeth. There is a reason why people fear my name. There are countless reasons why I shouldn’t be here with you,” he explains tiredly as if he has said those words a thousand times before. And he knows, in his memory, he has._

_Elizabeth moves her hand to gently cup the side of his face, a gesture that makes him flinch. “I will not run from you, Klaus. You are worthy of love.”_

_“You shouldn’t say such things…” he says seriously. It's his old defense mechanism. Deflection._

_Sighing, Elizabeth drops her hand and glances over her shoulder towards the stairwell where Elijah stands near to eavesdrop. She should have known he would be near. Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she shakes her head._

_“I need to get some air,” she breathes._

_Elizabeth steps away from the hold of Klaus. Navigating through the crowd, she finds herself walking deeply into the compound until she is a dark hallway where no person lingers. Her hands are shaking from emotion and she wonders why she feels this way. She does not get much time to dwell. Out of the corner of her eye, a figure steps out from the shadows and he holds an object in his hands that catches the moonlight. She stares back at him, eyes wide._

_She should have run._

            Silently, tears fall down her face as she is thrown harshly to the cold, dirty ground. She cries out in pain, cursing through her clenched jaw as the cell door is slammed shut behind her. Warm blood spills from her open wound, staining the floor that has seen her blood many times before. Weakly, she presses her palms to the dusty concrete, trying to ignore how utterly powerless she is. She knows her wounds will heal with time, but she knows by now just how long that will take amid her starvation. She is trapped, she cannot make herself strong again, she is nothing.

            When she arrived in this place, they strapped her down to a chair and cut open all of her major arteries. They watched as she bled out, but they made sure to keep enough blood in her system to keep her from desiccation. She was weak within the first hour of being held, she felt like a caged animal longing for home. They, of course, knew what she was capable of, they knew what kind of freak of nature she is, and they wanted to eliminate any risk of her breaking free because they had worked for many years to trap a vampire like her. She was and is their once in a lifetime shot, so they filled her up with Vervain and threw her into the very cell she lies in now. She is never fed enough blood to regain her strength. She is never treated like a living, breathing person. A part of her wonders what kind of a monster she would become if she ever got her hands around the throat of a guard. The warm blood would taste amazing on her tongue.

            Her thoughts are consumed by her family. If she did not have her memories of them, she is not sure where her mental state would be today. For all the memories she has, she is only brought temporary happiness because, as always, she is eventually faced with the unbearable feelings of loneliness and longing. She fears that on the day she pushes her memories from her mind for good will be the day she loses her humanity. She could have turned off her emotions years ago, it would be so easy to flip the switch, but she chose to keep them on for the sake of her own sanity. She will not become the monster they want her to be. She will never let him win.

            Her fingers expand outwards to a small pebble and she curls it into her fist with the last shred of energy she has. For ten years, she has been thrown into the same cell and she always comes back to this pebble. It seems silly to say that this small, insignificant rock has kept her grounded to her humanity. She feels alone here and this is all this has. She could relive her memories as much as she pleases, but they only bring her pain. She could never go back home and for all of her attempts, she knows she cannot break free. The people that hold her here are smart. They made sure to take every precaution necessary to ensure she could never escape. The bars on her cell door are laced with Vervain, her guards switch every few weeks… there’s no hope.

            Still, even though she fights it… she lies on the ground sobbing. Her heart aches and every inch of her body is tired. She has no more will to fight. She has no desire to try and break free again. By now, she knows it’s impossible. It's nothing but a pipe dream now. In the back of her mind, she knows what kind of place she is in. For years in the previous century, many vampires were captured and they became subjects in sinister science experiments that were done in the name of human medicine. Those places were thought to be extinct. That was until Elizabeth found herself being captured and brought to a place so freakishly similar. The Augustine facilities were horrible, but somehow this place is worse. 

           She is an old vampire. She was turned by an Original five-hundred years ago and she lived a long life with them. Proudly, she became a member of their family and through every terror, every loss, she was there. Her knowledge of the Original family made her a target. She had no idea a looming threat was watching. The Original family had no idea someone out there was planning to snatch her away to become subject to years of cruel and extreme torture. Sometimes, she wonders about what they think happened to her. They couldn’t have thought she would leave them when everything was going so well, but she has been in this place for a decade and there has been no evidence that they have been looking for her. Of course, she knows very little about what has been happening in the outside world. She has been out of touch for so long. It breaks her heart to consider that her family may be dead. Who knows what could have happened in the past ten years? Maybe everyone she knew is long gone.

            Biting her bottom lip, she tries to scoot herself to the wall. The guard that stands outside her door laughs and if she had the strength, she would snap his neck. Through her many sobs, she makes it to the wall. She squeezes her eyes shut and brings her knees to her chest to make herself seem as small as possible. This is the only form of comfort she can find in this place. What could she have done to earn this life? She used to be something powerful and she always did what she could to live a clean life. She traveled with the Original family and darkness would always follow them. She is not innocent of partaking in that evil, but she tried so hard. Committing the acts of necessary evils had to happen. And yet, despite her efforts to be clean, she still found herself here. Her life was traded for hell.  

                        She longs for home.

_"Niklaus, do I even want to ask what it is you are doing?"_

_In the middle of pushing a table effortlessly to the other side of the room, Klaus pauses midway to look at this older brother who stands ever so casually in the doorway. Elizabeth, on the other hand, continues working and covers the old couch with a protective tarp. She looks between the brothers, a smile on her lips. She had been hoping Elijah would join them after Rebekah declined their offer._

_"Is it not obvious, brother?" Klaus asks with a rarely seen smile. "We're going to give this room a fresh coat of paint."_

_Elijah rubs his chin in thought and decides to address the woman in the room, still searching for answers. "What has my brother in such a pleasant mood, Elizabeth? He was threatening to lay waste to the entirety of the French Quarter no more than an hour ago."_

_Elizabeth laughs quietly and lifts up one side of the couch to slide the tarp underneath with her foot. "Let's just say, I'm a miracle worker when it comes to persuasion," she leads on lightly._

_Curiously, Elijah's eyes roam the room until they settle on the coffee table which has two half-empty wine bottles and two glasses resting on it. He smirks slightly, gesturing between the two. "And am I to assume the drinking has nothing to do with it?" He presses happily._

_"Don't be boring, Elijah," Klaus complains as he pops one of the paint cans open. "We are of the legal drinking age, are we not?"_

_"Well, I suppose this is considerably better than going on one of your murder sprees. By all means, carry on," Elijah bids as he continues to watch us from the doorway._

_Elizabeth raises an eyebrow, gesturing to the spare paintbrush beside the leftover tarps. "You should help us, Elijah," she says. "The sooner we get this done and the sooner the paint dries, the sooner Hayley can come back to the compound."_

_Shaking his head, Elijah unbuttons his suit coat and lays it gently on the arm of the couch. He then rolls up his sleeves, doing his best to get the fabric as out of the way as he can get it. Elizabeth generously passes him the brush and delivers a bow after it has been passed off, a gesture that died out centuries ago. Elijah smiles and turns to a wall that has not been taken over by his brother. Elizabeth, in the meantime, grabs her own brush and decides to claim a spot besides Klaus' work._

_"I am perfectly capable of painting this wall on my own," he says, eyes never leaving the paint._

_Elizabeth looks to him, an eyebrow raised. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you marked your territory," she jokes, knowing exactly what it'll do to him._

_Klaus pauses, turning to her. He has obviously had too much to drink, but he does his best not to let it show. He'll be sober within the next handful of hours. "Was that a wolf joke, Ms. Walker?"_

_"Oh, bite me, Klaus," she says with a grin._

_Taking note of her brave tone, Klaus raises both eyebrows and points to her. "You're walking on thin ice now," he warns playfully._

_Elijah sighs suddenly, pausing his painting. "Do I dare ask if I should give you two the room?"_

_"Don't worry about us, Elijah," Elizabeth giggles. "Klaus is just drunk."_

_Shaking his head, Elijah dips his brush into the paint. "I do believe you both are."_

            Elizabeth lightly brushes her fingertips across the Vervain covered bars, wincing at the way it burns her flesh. If she could get her hands on a body, she could break out of here. That's all she needs. Shuttering, she squeezes her eyes shut and she allows, once again, the tears to fall. Breathing raggedly, she brings her knees to her chest. She cries out when her breast bone snaps back into place after having been previously stomped on many times by Charles. The cuts on her body are closing now, but she knows that by tomorrow morning, they will simply be opened once again.

            She has endured years of pain. Although she is an old vampire, although she is stronger than most… She still fears that she will continue to be broken down until she is nothing more than a pebble. The idea often doesn't seem too bad. She longs to be insignificant. Maybe then, he would see no reason harm to her. Maybe then, he would set her free.

            To her left, the guard slides her serving of lukewarm blood in through the gate at the bottom of her cell door. She knows the procedure like the back of her hand by now, so she waits until he backs up against the wall before reaching out to grab the small glass. There is only about two tablespoon’s worth of blood in this cup and as she brings it to her lips, she pauses. What exactly is the point in her feeding? So she can heal her wounds and continue to live? Lowering the glass, she looks back down at the blood and she swirls it around slowly. Her throat is on fire, begging her to take the drink. Every fiber in her body wants her to dump the contents of the glass into her mouth, but her hand does not move.

            “You shouldn’t starve yourself,” the guard says quietly. “You need to keep yourself fed.”

            With drawn eyebrows, Elizabeth looks up at the man who speaks to her. She stiffly sets her glass down on the ground in her annoyance, briefly forgetting about her thirst. “Why the hell do you care?” She snaps hastily.

            The guard sighs at her attitude and, much to her surprise, he sets his Vervain dart gun down on the ground. In all of the time she has been held in this facility, she has never once seen a guard lay down their weapon. Any one thing can happen in an instant should she try to escape again. This man could die in a blink of an eye. As she looks at him now, her eyes roam over his face. His hair is dark and cut neatly to an appropriate length for this line of work. His bright green eyes contrast nicely against his pale skin and from what she can see through the gear, he appears to be in decent shape.

            “Let’s just say that I don’t agree with what is being done here,” the guard mutters in irritation. “My name is Nathan. My father is…” he pauses uncomfortably. “He’s… you know.”

            Elizabeth scoffs, eyes darting to the floor. “Your father is Charles,” she finishes for him.

            Nathan nods awkwardly in silence and Elizabeth can see the shame that is presented in his eyes. “Which is _exactly_ why you need to feed,” he points out seriously. “If my father finds out that you’ve started to starve yourself, he’ll force-feed you to keep you from desiccation. You’re his largest asset. He’ll do anything to keep his work alive. Please don’t make this harder on yourself, Elizabeth.”

            She flinches at the sound of her real name. For a decade she has been called Lizzie and she has grown to absolutely loathe the name. “You know who I am?” She asks, throat dry.

            Nathan nods and lowers himself to the ground until he is sitting with his back against the wall with his knees bent. “Well, yeah. You’re Elizabeth Walker. You’re the vampire that ran with the Original family,” he explains excitedly. “You gotta be over five-hundred years old now. You were turned by the Mad Hybrid and with the rumors that fly around New Orleans, it sounds like you guys had a history of some kind. You’re an incredibly famous vampire.”

            _The Mad Hybrid. Is that what they’re calling him now?_ “How do you know all of this?” She asks, bewildered. “I’ve hardly told Charles anything about my life, let alone his son.”

            Nathan laughs quietly as if to not bring any attention to their conversation. Quickly, he checks to see if anyone is coming in through the door at the end of the cellblock before answering. “I have a lot of connections and I know how to do my research. I kinda wanted to know why my father is so obsessed with you,” he clarifies. “Look, I really want to help you, Elizabeth. I can’t break you out of here on my own because I will be dead the minute I try, but I can make your time here a little easier.”

            It sounds entirely too good to be true. Rolling her tired eyes, Elizabeth makes a face of pure disgust. “Nathan, I’m sure you’re a great person, but you’re Charles’ son,” she says. “Why the hell should I even trust you?” 

            He excepted that reaction from her. Her lack of trust for another person can be traced right back to his father's lab. “I’m sure you know your guards change out every few weeks to make it difficult for you to break out. I can convince my father to keep me on the job if he believes I’m enjoying the work. He wants me to take over this place when he’s ready to move on. He will listen to me.”

            “For all I know, this act of yours could be another one of Charles’ games to mess with my mind,” she spats distrustfully. “It wouldn’t be the first time he has done this to me.”

            Nathan gives her an annoyed look and from within his protective gear, he pulls out a sixteen-ounce water bottle full of blood. He leans forward and shoves it underneath the gate at the bottom of the cell door. Elizabeth looks at it with astonishment. This is more blood than she has been fed in a decade. Her throat has never burned more.

            “I can give you my blood to help you get stronger. I can’t give you as much as I would like for obvious reasons, but I can give you enough to take the edge off,” he explains calmly.

            Elizabeth lifts the water bottle with a shaking hand, still in disbelief. She has no idea why Nathan has decided to help her and although her gut is telling her not to, she unscrews the lid to the bottle. “Thank you…” She whispers, her voice breaking from the thirst.

            Nathan smiles softly and gestures to the bottle she holds. “Now, please feed,” he urges. “You need to get your strength back up."


	2. Wishful Thinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three months later, Elizabeth continues to fight for her life as Charles tries to pry into her life. After refusing to give him the information he wants, he grows angry with her and delivers a punishment that he sees fit. Unsure of what to do, Nathan decides he cannot stand and watch any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ: Thank you guys so much for being supportive so far! The first chunk of chapters a little bit back-and-forth, but it all unfolds to something much greater. This is the second BETA UPLOAD before I actually start pushing these chapters out on a regular basis. I felt the first chapter was kind of blunt and to the point, so I wanted to give you guys more to read that holds a little more depth.

_“Bloody hell.”_

_Elizabeth spins on her heels to find Klaus standing at the entrance of the Abattoir wearing an expression that reads nothing less than annoyance._

_“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Niklaus. Christmas is only a few weeks away and I promised I would have the place decorated in time for Rebekah’s return,” she says with a laugh. “You know it has been years since she has spent the holidays with us.”_

_Klaus watches with agitation as Elizabeth continues to hang the last of the white twinkling lights on the banister. “It’s bad enough my little sister insists on becoming Santa’s happiest little elf during this time of year and now she has infected you with this plague?” He questions with his arms crossed over his chest._

_Elizabeth grabs the next box of decorations and she walks down the steps with a brilliant smile on her face. “When did you become such a Grinch, Klaus? It won’t kill you to express some joy for the holiday for once. Besides, this is the first year in a decade that we will all be here for it.”_

_Defrosting ever so slightly, Klaus walks over to her and takes the box from her arms. “That character may as well have been designed in the light of me,” he grumbles bitterly._

_Laughing, she boops his nose playfully with her finger. The glare he sends her way could end her life in an instant should she look for too long. A brief smile appears on his lips when she turns to start setting up the table decorations, something she most definitely saw out of the corner of her eye. Minutes melt into a half-hour and suddenly, the soft sound of Christmas music begins to fill the main floor. A pair of hands then slide onto her hips and she jumps at the contact, having not felt the presence of another person behind her. Craning her neck, she turns to find that Klaus is the culprit. His sudden change in mood is slightly disorienting, but it’s a welcomed change._

_“And the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes…” Elizabeth muses._

_Klaus spins her around to face him, making her breath hitch in her throat. They are dangerously close to one another and she believes this must be the root of his plan, whatever that plan may be._

_“What heart?” he asks sarcastically. “I was under the impression that I was heartless and care about nothing.”_

_Elizabeth rolls her eyes irritably as she thinks back on the argument from two nights prior. She deeply regrets those words even though she meant them at the time in which she spoke them. Their emotions had become muddy in the midst of their shared anger for one another._

_“Klaus, I’m sorry I said those–”_

_Promptly cutting her off, Klaus places a finger over her lips and he draws her body closer to his own. “Never mind that, love. Just dance with me,” he says warmly. “I have missed seeing your face around here,” he adds on quietly._

_Elizabeth smiles and she allows him to move her to the soft music. It has been a long while since she was home last. Between her fights with Klaus and her eagerness to see the world, she needed to get away for a while. She went wherever the world took her and she met the most interesting people in Europe. It had been three years before she came back home. Not much had changed when she returned a week ago, things seemed to be just as she left them. No matter where she goes, she always comes back home because this is where she belongs. She belongs right here, right now, doing exactly what she is. This is all that matters in this life._

            Her head is spinning and her entire body feels hollow. Charles sets the scalpel he was using on her no more than a few seconds ago aside on the metal tray and he smiles down on her as if he is proud of the work he has done today. His bright blue eyes carry something sinister within in them. Tears stream down her cheeks and she wonders if there will be a day in which she can no longer cry. The thick restraints around her bruises wrists and ankles keep her filmy strapped against the procedure table and she desperately wishes she was strong enough to break free of them. She hates these restraints. The open wounds on her body spill blood into the waiting buckets below. She feels sick, she feels violated, and she no longer feels hope.

            “Tell me, Lizzie. What do you think about that keeps you so calm during our sessions together?” Charles asks kindly, a soft touch to his voice. “I have always wondered…”

            Elizabeth scoffs, glaring at the man who stands over her. Turning away he grabs a needle from the metal tray and he uses it to inject Vervain into her IV bag, his graying hair catches the light that seeps in through the barred window to their right. The Vervain burns as it enters her system, but she has grown used to it. To say that she has started to build up a tolerance to Vervain would be an incredible understatement. The burning, she realizes, is nothing compared to what has been done to her today. With time, her physical wounds will heal. However, she knows for as long as she lives, she will have to carry her memories with her. It’s not a thought she wishes to dwell on, but it is one that must be acknowledged.

            “Sessions? Is that what you call it?” She asks coldly, her anger boiling under her skin. “You think cutting into my body and torturing me every day is some kind of light-hearted session between doctor and patient?” Her stomach churns at the idea. How can he be so inhumane?

            Charles frowns and injects the second round of Vervain, slightly more potent than the last, into her IV bag. He will not tolerate that kind of tone from her. She _will_ learn to obey him. He will continue to break her down until she is nothing. He admires how long she has held out. “I know what you think of me, Lizzie. There is no need to be rude,” he sighs, briefly touching his rounded chin. “Tell me what you think about. Do not make me ask you again.”

            Elizabeth swallows back her fear, masking the terror in her dark eyes with resentment. She has never hated a person as much as she hates this man. “You’re a psychotic prick,” she snarls. “You will rot in hell, you son of a bitch.”

            She was not prepared for a scalpel that plunges deep into her thigh. She cries out in pain, pulling against the restraints. Her loose curls stick to the sweat on her forehead, matting together. Charles watches with a heinous smile, pressing the blade deeper and deeper into her flesh. He enjoys watching the pain it causes her. He finds it interesting that a creature as old as she is can feel such human pain.

            “Tell me, Lizzie,” he says again. “Cooperate and I will let you feed tonight.”

            Gasping for air, Elizabeth closes her eyes. Fear pangs around her brain, but she will not let it win. She counts backward from five, letting it thrive for only those few short seconds. _Comply and survive._ “I think about home… My family,” she confesses reluctantly.

            Charles hums softly and pulls the blade from her leg. He is good on his word. “Your family? Are you referring to the Mikaelsons?” He asks. When she nods hesitantly, he laughs at her. She truly is an idiot after all. “Lizzie, do you truly believe that they are your family? If they cared so much about you, where are they now? They only let you stay out of pity. They never cared about you. You should know that by now. You are nothing to them.”

            The anger that burns through her is white-hot. Unable to do anything else, she spats in his face and Charles wastes no time to stab her leg again with the scalpel, to which she hardly responds to. He then grabs her by the throat as if to make some kind of point, as if to remind her that she is powerless here. She is not in control. He can feel the blood pulsing through her veins under his hold and he would happily watch her bleed out again should she not listen to him.

            “You will _never_ do that again,” he says through a clenched, strong jaw. “Do you understand me?”

            Without saying a word, Elizabeth nods and she turns her tearful brown eyes up to the ceiling as the scalpel is pulled from her thigh once more. There is no use in fighting him anymore. He will always get his way whether she wants him to or not because he has the upper hand. She is nothing more than a test subject and he is the powerful one in this scenario. She craves for the day she can flip the tables on him.

            “Tell me more about your so-called family,” he demands, notepad ready. “I want to know everything.”

            Elizabeth opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out. She has spent ten years resisting him and telling him nothing about her family. It was information that put a price on her head in the first place and it will not be the information she will give to satisfy him. She swore to protect the Original family at all costs, she will not bend on that promise now. Charles sees this as an act of resistance and he moves to stab her again, but he does not get far. The door to the lab opens and in comes Nathan with a scowl on his face. His dart gun hangs loosely at his side.

            “I’m here to transport the subject,” he says coldly. His eyes flicker to Elizabeth’s for only a half-second.

            Charles sighs and he reluctantly unhooks Elizabeth’s restraints, all while giving her a look of disappointment. “Feed her half of her serving today and give the rest to subject #1576,” he tells his son. “Consider this to be a punishment for your disobedience, Elizabeth.”

            Towering above her, Nathan grabs her by the back of her neck and shoves her out of the room, down the cold corridor she has seen many times. She can hear the screaming and moaning from the other cells and for a moment she wonders what kind of terror the other prisoners face. From what she knows, Charles also has a handful of other vampires and a large assortment of werewolves in his cells, but none of which he keeps in the same cell block as hers. He likes to keep her completely isolated. Nathan only releases her when they arrive at her cell and to add onto the façade, he shoves her hard enough to send her tumbling to the ground. She scuffs her knees and she hisses at the pain, watching as Nathan locks her in for another night.

            “I’m sorry about that,” he apologizes quietly. There is a look of true conflict in his eyes.

            Elizabeth slowly shakes her head as she attempts to wipe the dirt from her palms on to her blood-soaked shirt that clings to her small, yet strong frame. Her head feels heavy from the lack of blood in her system. She can hardly keep herself sitting up. “You don’t have to keep apologizing to me,” she says. She briefly eyes the security camera pointing down her cell block, taking note of the unplugged audio cable. “I know you’re just acting. I can handle being thrown around. The problem with every-day-torture is it eventually starts to become tolerable.”

            Nathan nods and with a discreet hand, he reaches into his vest for the bottle full of his blood. It’s still warm and is as bright red as ever. He shakes it slightly with repulsion on his face as he tries to understand what could be so appealing about blood. Turning away from the thought, he bends down and slides the bottle into her cell through the gate. Elizabeth makes a grab for it and is quick to unscrew the cap, bringing the blood to her lips. For three months he has done this for her and not a day goes by where she is not grateful for what he has done for her. She has grown to trust him in their time building a stable relationship.

            "Do you mind me asking how old you were when you were turned?" Nathan asks hesitantly. He has always wondered about her past but has never had the balls to ask about it.            

            Elizabeth wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smiling just softly as she thinks back on the night she was turned. "I was twenty," she recalls. "I hardly feel that young anymore. I died back in 1517"

            Nathan presses his lips together in a thin line as he thinks on her answer. If she were human, he would only be five years older than her. "How did it happen?" He then asks. "If you don't mind me asking," he then quickly adds on.

            Elizabeth laughs quietly. She does not often think about her death. Given the life she has lived, her death hardly compares to the torture she has endured. "I was attending a ball when vampires attacked. I was with the Mikaelsons, more specifically Klaus. It was an absolutely beautiful night," she recalls. "I found myself facing a vampire when Klaus left my side to defend the crowd. The vampire attacked me, threw me into the second-floor banister. My spine had been broken and glass shards were in my chest. Klaus barely got to me in time. I died shortly after he fed me his blood."

            Horror fills Nathan's eyes. He cannot imagine what that must have felt like. "Do you regret feeding? Weren't you scared?"

            Elizabeth shrugs her weak shoulders. With a shaking hand, she pushes her brown hair back and she rests her head back onto the dirty wall. She has thought about her answer to this question for as long as she has been alive. "Klaus never wanted vampirism for me. He was upset when I woke up because he knew he was too late. I fed because I wasn't done living. I knew what feeding would mean, but the thought of being a vampire never scared me. I became a better person after transitioning and it gave me a long life," she says with a soft smile on her lips. "I have seen many great things in my time and I have met many people. I could never regret my decision to feed."

            Sadly, Nathan gestures to her cell. "Even if being a vampire is what caused you to be captured?"

            "As much as I hate it here and even though I suffer every time I draw in a breath, I have lived many centuries before this," she explains. "He cannot hold me forever."

            "I don't know how you do it," Nathan sighs. "Any normal person would have gone insane by now. I know what he does to you in that lab. How you can be so strong after a decade of this shit is mind-blowing."

            Elizabeth crosses her legs and mindlessly touches her finger where her daylight ring once resided. "Vampires have this switch we can flip to turn off our emotions. It turns off the guilt some may feel when they feed, it turns off the fear and sadness... It makes everything numb," she says slowly. "I've thought about turning my switch off many times before, but I can't do it. I won't."

            Nathan makes a confused face. "If it takes away your suffering, why wouldn't you?"

            "Because without my emotions, I wouldn't be me anymore. I wouldn't remember the love I feel for my family or the happiness I feel when I think back on the times I shared with them," she explains. "My emotions are the only thing I have left in this place. I won't give Charles the satisfaction of knowing he broke me."

            At the end of the cellblock, the heavy door opens. Moving quickly, Nathan takes back the bottle and is sure to put enough space in between him and the cell door before anyone can see. As the footsteps draw closer, Nathan picks up his dart gun and plasters his fake ass scowl on his face. Elizabeth, in the meantime, slumps over and makes herself look as weak as possible. Nobody can know about the blood Nathan gives her. Out of the corner of her eye, Charles comes into view and her heart begins to slam against her chest. He hardly ever pays her visits after she has been put back into her cell for the night anymore.

            “Has she been fed yet?” Charles asks

            “No, sir. I thought I would let her starve for a little while longer,” Nathan responds with cruelty woven into his voice. “The little bitch deserves it.”

            Charles laughs and claps his son on the shoulder. “Good. I’m glad you are taking this job seriously,” he says with pride. “Someday, this place will be yours to run. I look forward to the work you will do.”

            Nathan nods and Charles turns to the cell to stare down on Elizabeth. She looks up at him tiredly, a flare of hatred in her eyes. She longs for the day she can wrap her hands around his neck. She will get her revenge one day, even if it’s the last thing she does.

            “How are you doing, Lizzie?” He asks her with a smile.

            Although she tries to resist her instincts, she cannot stop her fangs from dropping. She can hear his heartbeat and the blood rushing through his veins. “You know damn well how I’m doing, you son of a bitch,” she growls.

            Charles seems surprised by the presence of her true vampiric face. He makes a note on his clipboard for further exploration later. All of the extra blood she has been receiving is making her natural instincts come back and although they have a tendency to show at the worst times, she is not ashamed to admit that she has missed them. To feel strong and fast again… she almost feels normal.

            “Well, I’m afraid you will not be getting much time to recover tonight,” he muses. “I have decided that I want to try something on you to further your punishment for how you acted in my lab today. I did not appreciate your attitude. Give me your arm please.”

            Fully aware that he will only come in and take her arm forcefully if she does not comply, she puts her arm against the bars that burn her skin. Charles pulls a syringe from his coat pocket and she can see that it’s full of a clear liquid that almost glows in the moonlight from her rarely open cell window. He injects the serum into her body and almost immediately, she feels as if she is being set on fire. Screaming in pain, she throws herself onto her side. Her fingers dig into the ground as she gasps, breaking it slightly. Her heart pounds against her chest in panic and beads of sweat form on her forehead as she feels her body temperature rise from within. Writhing in pain, she screams on the top of her lungs.

            “P-Please…” she begs. She has never felt anything like this. The pain is so intense she can hardly think. “Make it… stop. P-Please.”

            Nobody comes to her aid. Charles watches with a smile, enjoying the sight before him. Nathan’s mouth hangs open slightly and he looks between the vampire in the cell and his father.

            “What did you just inject her with?” Nathan asks, panic subtly in his voice. He cannot keep his act up right now. All he can think about is her pain.

            “Just something I whipped up in the lab. I spent months perfecting it,” Charles laughs. “She will be like this for quite a while. I would suggest getting comfortable.”

            Charles saunters away and when the heavy titanium door closes behind him, Nathan rushes to the bars in worry. He has never seen her like this. He wants to help but is unsure of what he can do. Going into the cell would bring too much attention.

            “Elizabeth? What’s going on?” He asks. “Can you hear me?”

            Sobbing, Elizabeth tries so hard to pull air into her lungs. She’s suffocating. Her hands find their way to her hair and she pulls her knees to her chest. She has to find peace within herself, but all she can feel is fire. Everything hurts and she wants to turn it all off. Crying out, she writhes and convulses until suddenly her body cannot take it anymore. The last thing she sees before she falls unconscious is Nathan’s panicked face.

            _Elizabeth watches carefully as he explodes with rage. He throws a wine glass across the room and it shatters against the wall. Glass shards scatter on the floor and wine soaks into the rug. Never flinching, she keeps her posture still and watches with soft eyes. She understands why he is upset._

_"Why do they insist on hurting me?" He demands loudly. "I have done nothing but stand beside them and they do this to me?"_

_Unafraid of what he may do to her in his anger, Elizabeth crosses the barrier line. She walks towards him with intent, her hands hanging by her sides. She knows he will not harm her. "They are only trying to protect you, Klaus. You must see that. You have caused so much damage and they wish to see no more of it," she explains steadily. "This is only temporary. I promise."_

_Klaus growls deep in the back of this throat, his eyes meeting hers. "Your promises mean nothing to me," he spats._

_Moving quickly, he shoves everything from the nearby table and Elizabeth squeezes her eyes shut for only a single moment. Objects fly past her and she clenches her hands into fists, resisting the urge to yell at him. His anger will pass._

_"I cause damage to protect all of us from our enemies," Klaus argues. "Everything I have done is in the name of this family."_

_"Niklaus, please," Elizabeth begs softly. "Rebekah and Elijah both believe you have let your paranoia take control again. We can be safe here."_

_Shaking his head, fuming from the rage that burns from within him, Klaus stands dangerously close to Elizabeth. She meets his burning gaze, hoping that if he can see that she means no ill intent, he will let go of the rage he feels. Instead, he jabs a finger roughly against her chest._

_"Did you know they would do this to me?" He asks, voice broken. "Were you apart of this ridiculous plan to trap me in my room like some troubled boy?"_

_Elizabeth covers the hand that jabs at her chest with her own, feeling how he tenses beneath her gentle touch. "I didn't know they would trap you here, Klaus," she answers honestly. She knows all too well what happens to people when they lie to him in the face of his temper. "They do not see things like you do. And I'm not saying any of you are right for your actions, but this was necessary. I know you feel betrayed. I understand.”_

_Much to her surprise, Klaus lets go of his anger. Rarely seen tears fall from his eyes and she feels her heart sink low. He truly is hurt to know that his siblings do not trust him. The betrayal he feels goes much further than the rage he felt once he realized he could not leave. She sees that now and with a slow, but sure hand, she cups the side of his face._

_"I just want to protect my daughter," he confesses._

_Elizabeth nods, already knowing that truth. In the back of her mind, she does not agree with how Rebekah and Elijah went about their plan, but it was the only way to protect Hope. "She is protected, Klaus. You must see that."_

_He scoffs, shaking his head. He pulls away from her, taking three steps back. "And I suppose you'll be running off to help them, then? The three of you make a perfect little team."_

_"No," she disagrees. "I'm staying with you tonight, Klaus," she promises._

            Elizabeth awakens to darkness and frustrated yelling from the men and women in the facility, Charles’ freak human Hybrids running through the halls. On the ground, she lies on her stomach and her face rests awkwardly on her arm. Coming to her senses, she presses her palms to the ground and she tries to move her stiff body. She is much too weak. Collapsing back down, she feels a sticky puddle around her and she can smell that it’s her blood. From behind her, she hears her cell door being unlocked and opened. Heavy boots walk towards her limp body and two hands carefully roll her onto her back.

            Her vision is hazy and she's seeing double, but she can just barely make out Nathan’s face and his concerned green eyes. He furrows his eyebrows, still disturbed by what he witnessed earlier. He waves a hand in front of her face as if to check her senses. Unable to do much else, Elizabeth gently raises her hand to touch his knee to let him know that she is still alive.

            “You look like hell,” he comments quietly under the sounds of the alarm sirens.

            With ease, he lifts her worn body into his arms bridal style and he carries her out to of the corridor she has lived in for ten years. There are flashing emergency lights going off and the brightness of the flashes makes her head spin. She's nauseous. Breathing heavily, she squeezes her eyes shut and lies limply in Nathan’s arms, unable to get past her state of pain and exhaustion. Her veins feel like sandpaper.

            “Is that her?” A man asks slowly. “She’s turning grey.”

            “She’s starting to desiccate. Just get her out of here, okay? She is extremely weak, but she still needs to be fed so be sure to sedate her,” Nathan says in a hurried rush of words. “This is her first time being in the real world. I gotta run before he figures out it was me. I’ll meet you back at the safe house when it’s clear. Hold her until then.”

            Without another word, Elizabeth is passed into another man’s arms and something sharp is plunged into her neck. Within seconds, she grows sleepy and falls under unconsciousness once again.


	3. Josh the Peacekeeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being rescued from Charles' facility, Elizabeth wakes up to discover her days of being a prisoner are not entirely over. As she slowly figures out what has happened to the world in her absence, she and Josh start making a plan.

_“Elizabeth, it's good to see you again,” Elijah greets warmly at the entrance to her bedroom._

_Elizabeth turns from her dresser where she had previously been unloading her long-packed clothing from her most recent trip. “Is it true?” She asks without hesitation. “Is the wolf pregnant?”_

_Elijah nods once and makes a gesture down the hall. “She's staying in the guest room,” he says. “Hayley is not too far along in her pregnancy, but she will need to be protected. I have promised her to do just that. I have a suspicion the witches are not being entirely truthful.”_

_“Hayley Marshal,” she mutters in annoyance. Closing her drawer, Elizabeth crosses the room and stops only a couple feet away from the eldest living Mikaelson. “And how is Klaus taking it? I doubt he’s keen on becoming a father,” she pries, searching for the truth Elijah is withholding from her. There is a reason why he called her back._

_“As expected, Niklaus is acting rather unfavorable,” he admits. “However, I do strongly believe this baby can change him. He feels something for it, I know he does.”_

_Elizabeth breathes in deeply. She's having a hard time wrapping her mind around this at it is. “You're putting a lot of faith into a maybe, Elijah. Klaus has been on a dangerous course for a long while now,” she says skeptically. “I've done what I can, but even I cannot control him.”_

_Elijah nods and reaches out to grab her hand. He carefully brushes his thumb over her daylight ring, recalling the day it was given to her. “Control him, no. I’m afraid no one can do such a thing nor should they try,” he says. “But, contrary to what you may believe, you are good for him. You keep him stable and grounded. I did not call you here because I need you to clean up his messes. I called you here because I need you to be a positive influence on him. He cares for this baby. We only need to help him realize it.”_

_Shaking her head, Elizabeth pulls her hand away and she turns to her suitcase for the letters Klaus sent her in the years she was away. She holds them up angrily, throwing them onto the nearby desk. “He wrote me letters, but never did he mention coming back home to New Orleans,” she spats. “Let's not forget he was the one who sent me away in the first place. He will not be pleased to see me here.”_

_Elijah turns his head slightly to the stairwell and he sighs deeply, folding his hands together. “I suppose now will be a good time to find out. He has returned home,” he announces. “Do try not to tear his head off. He has been in a rather cynical mood as of late and I do not wish to provoke him.”_

_Taking a moment to recollect her thoughts, Elizabeth walks right past Elijah and heads down the stairs. She listens for movement and turns to the living room where Klaus stands with his back to her as he looks out the large window. He does not turn to face her and she supposes it's because he has no idea who stands before him. She stands idly, trying to find the right words to say. She will not tear his head off, although the idea seems appealing, for the sake of her brother upstairs. She will, however, get some of the answers she has been searching for ever since Elijah asked her to return._

_“So, in the time I have been gone, you have both gotten a werewolf pregnant and returned home to engage in a war,” she says broadly. “Would you like to explain to me why I had to find out through Elijah?”_

_Klaus slowly turns out with his eyebrows drawn together, but his face softens at the sight of the woman standing in the mouth of the living room. “Elizabeth,” he says quietly. “It has been quite some time, hasn't it?”_

            Gasping for air, she bolts upwards in a panicked frenzy fueled by intense fear. She blinks rapidly, pulling herself from deep rest, eyes darting around the room. Her heart pounds against her chest. She can feel it in her ears. She sits on a large bed with white, fluffy blankets and in the corner of the room sits a sleeping man in an armchair. Elizabeth squeezes her eyes shut, trying to search through her foggy memories for the night she remembers last. There was yelling from the guards, blaring alarms… flashing red lights that made her head spin. She remembers nothing of value from that point on. If the man in the corner is meant to keep an eye on her, then he is doing a horrible job at it.

            Feeling rather confident that this is not entirely what it would seem to be, Elizabeth grabs the pillow closest to her. Heaving, she throws it at the man with more strength than she has been able to use in years. The movement startles her and as the pillow explodes against the chest of the man, feathers flying everywhere, he jolts awake. He stares at Elizabeth with wide, brown eyes. He is unphased by the impact of the pillow, to which Elizabeth finds suspicious. He is not human. She barely has enough time to think before her instincts kick in. Suddenly, her true face exposes itself threateningly; she has missed the feeling of being powerful. As soon as she gets to her feet, ready to strike should he attack, the man throws his hands up into the air. He jumps to his feet frantically, moving in a blur, shaking his head. He is afraid of her.

            “Whoa, whoa!” He yells desperately. “Hold it! I’m not the enemy!”

            Unsure of what to make of his harmless reaction, Elizabeth hides her fangs behind her lips. Suddenly, a wave of dizziness overcomes her and she brings a hand to her forehead. Clumsily, she collapses down on the bed and she brings her tongue to her fangs as they remain where they are. She may be stronger, but she desperately needs to feed on _something_.

            “Who are you?” She asks, voice hoarse. The voice she used hardly sounded like it was hers.

            The man, with one hand still raised as if to assure her safety, shakes off some of the feathers from his hair and clothes. His eyes never leave her and they’re pleading, begging her to stay calm. “My name is Josh Rosza and if you escape, you are going to fuck everything up. I’ll be a dead man walking,” he explains in a calm voice. He then makes an impassive face in reaction to what he said. “Which… is tragically hilarious when you think about it considering I’m already dead.”

            Elizabeth draws her eyebrows together, feeling her fangs recede. She then accepts that she will not need to defend herself at this moment. Slowly, she moves to cross her legs on top of the bed. Her limbs are still painfully stiff and she would prefer it if she didn’t have to move entirely too much if she can help it. She needs blood.

            “Where am I?” She then presses, searching for any kind of answer that makes some form of sense to her. “Why am I here?”

            Josh exhales slowly with relief and he plops back down on the chair, sending feathers back into the air. He watches them fall absentmindedly, searching for an answer that will feed her curiosity. “That’s… complicated,” he begins slowly. “I’m not exactly the right person to explain it.”

            “Can you at least tell me where we are?” She asks irritably. “I’ve been held in a cell for the past decade. I don’t even know what day it is.”

            Josh frowns slightly at her desperation. When Nathan reached out to them about a female vampire who has been held captive for ten years, nearly eleven, he heard just a few details about what had been done to her. He cannot imagine what else was left unsaid. “You’re just outside New Orleans,” he replies. “It’s July fifteenth.”

            Elizabeth inhales sharply. The last time she knew the exact date was four years ago. _July… summer._ And she’s near New Orleans, so close to her home. Josh watches the many facial expressions that appear on her face. It’s clear that she is both enlightened and disoriented. If he could make this any easier on her, he would. He knows the minute she finds out what’s going on here, she’ll flip and will want nothing to do with the other pressing issues at hand.

            “I’m kind of glad you decided not to attack me. You’re like twenty-five times my age and even with how weak you are right now, I’m sure you would have ripped my heart out in less than a second,” Josh jokes. Maybe humor will ease her mind.

            Elizabeth tilts her head to the side. There’s something about Josh that is familiar, but she cannot place her finger on it. “Have we met before?”

            Josh smiles and gestures to his face. “What? You don’t remember this stunning face?” He jokes brightly. “No, I was turned the same year the Mikaelsons returned to the city. I was Klaus’ spy for a while until Davina Claire cleared my mind from his compulsion. I’m surprised we never met. I heard a lot about you. You’re a _big_ deal around here, especially since your disappearance.”

Elizabeth looks down at her hands sadly. _Klaus Mikaelson._ It has been a long while since she has heard his name spoke by somebody other than the people that held her captive. “Is that what they’re calling it?” She asks bitterly.

Josh frowns slightly, but it melts away when he remembers something else that might help her out. Rising from the armchair, he points to the mini-fridge. “When Nathan got in touch with us, he warned us that you haven’t had a proper meal for as long as you’ve been held,” he says almost too excitedly. The tone confuses her. “I got some blood in there if you want it? You gotta be starving.”

Sitting up straight, Elizabeth nods her head. The all too familiar burning in her throat as never gone away and she longs for it to be numbed. She wishes she can remember what it feels like to be _normal_ , but Charles did an excellent job of taking that from her. Eagerly, Josh reaches into the fridge and pulls out a small tub of blood bags. He walks over to the bed and he leaves it in front of her, watching as she hesitantly reaches out for a bag. Fighting with her terrified subconscious, she wraps her fingers around one and she brings it to her lips. Josh slowly backs off then almost as if he is afraid of making movements that are too fast or too sudden. Although she is still wary that this is all some kind of cruel joke, she sucks the blood into her mouth and she is relieved when she finds no trace of Vervain within it.

“How long was I asleep for?” She asks, lips red with blood.

Josh smiles at the happy sight. It’s strange how much color has returned to her face within seconds of feeding. “About four days, not counting the day we got you out,” he informs. “You were pretty much in and out during the exchange. Nathan wanted us to keep you sedated until you were safely here, but then you didn’t wake up. We figured you needed rest. You were in bad shape… nearly desiccated.”

Still feeling pangs of doubt because that is all she has been trained to feel – unsafe and distrustful – Elizabeth continues to feed on the bags until all four are empty and she feels full. She could cry from the feeling alone. It has been entirely too long. Looking down, she notices that she was, at some point, changed out of the clothes Charles had given her to wear and put into something clean. Jeans, a T-shirt… and _socks._ She smiles at the bright pattern on them and she wiggles her toes, unable to believe what she’s seeing. Next, she inspects her skin and is utterly shocked to see it clean of all accumulated dirt, blood, and grime that had built up. She runs her hands through her hair that bounces with her loose curls and that same expression of joy washes into her eyes when she finds no mats or knots. She’s clean.

“Don’t, uh… Don’t worry. I wasn’t the one who cleaned you up and dressed you,” Josh informs to answer Elizabeth’s unspoken question. “I-I mean I helped, but I didn’t look. I swear. It was mostly all Davina. She took good care of you. She spent hours on your hair.”

            Elizabeth looks up at the vampire across the room and she exhales slowly. She still needs answers to her more pressing questions. “Look, I need some real answers about what I’m doing here. I’ve been out of the loop for so long,” she pries. “What _can_ you tell me?”

Josh nods, understanding, and he moves to lean forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “About two weeks ago, Nathan reached out to some vampires who got in contact with a vampire you know pretty well. Marcel Gerard.”

            Elizabeth freezes at the mention of that name, having not heard it spoken for years. Last time she was around, he and Klaus were constantly at war with each other over control. Josh quickly holds his hands up as if to tell her to hold her reactions. His story is not complete.

“You see, Marcel and the Mikaelsons had this agreement going. Everything was peaceful _until_ a new group of wolves came in and tore everything apart because they didn’t like how things were being run in the city,” he begins. “Things have been pretty chill lately, except Marcel and Klaus have been fighting over the throne and control again. When Nathan called saying he knows where you are, Marcel gained the leverage he needs. This new fight between them has been going on for about a year and it’s all over the same shit. Control and respect. It’s driving everyone crazy.”

Relief washes over her. The Mikaelsons are still alive. _Klaus_ is still alive. However, the relief does not last long as she thinks over the situation. “So, Marcel rescued me… But won’t let me go home?” She asks heatedly. “He wants to use me in this fight he is having with Niklaus?” 

“Klaus was doing okay for a while, but then you disappeared and he changed. It’s like he went back to factory settings or something,” Josh explains. “Lately, he’s been okay, all things considered, but Marcel is trying to run the city and Klaus keeps starting fights just to piss him off. And we all know how Klaus gets when he’s upset. Now just picture him upset for a decade straight and you’re on the same page as everyone else.”

As her frustration boils within her, Elizabeth squeezes her eyes such in a desperate attempt to keep her temper in check. She will not lash out, she will not harm anyone. To her left, she hears the sound of the heavy door being opened and she listens carefully to the footsteps that walk through it. She doesn’t have to look to know who this is. Opening her eyes, she sends a loathsome expression over to the man who has created the start of something nasty that she wants no part of.

Marcel smiles at her and as he draws closer, he extends a hand to try and rest it upon her shoulder. Immediately, she slaps his hand away and she finds herself standing on the other side of the room. She hadn’t even realized she moved; she has missed her speed. Marcel stares at her, speechless given her hostile reaction. He’s not sure how to greet her now that it’s clear she does not want to be touched or near him. Elizabeth breathes heavily, the blood rushing to her eyes.

“Josh,” Marcel says slowly, his eyes never leaving Elizabeth, “what did you tell her?”

Josh shrugs his shoulders from his place in the armchair. He seems completely unphased by Marcel. “Oh, nothing. Just that you plan on keeping her trapped here so you have some leverage to use against Klaus. Leverage that you know he will respond to,” he explains casually. “Never mind the fact that you just rescued her from the definition of hell for vampires. She has every right to be pissed off. I know I am. Oh, and let’s not forget that you are going against Nathan’s plan.”

Marcel scoffs and walks right over to Josh, forcing the young vampire to his feet as he grasps him by his collar. “You’re damn right I’m using her as leverage,” he agrees hotheadedly. “Klaus allowed me to run the city, but I can’t do that if he’s killing every one of my guys because he doesn’t like the way they look at him. He’s a train wreck and he’s _dangerous_ for anyone in this city.”

Shoving Marcel back, Josh flattens his shirt. “When will Klaus ever be peaceful, Marcel? It’s _Klaus_ for crying out loud,” he asks irritably. He then squares up with Marcel and Elizabeth is amazed by his bravery. “Look, I am probably one of the last people to take Klaus’ side, but your guys have been a little out of control and Klaus does _not_ take jokes about Elizabeth’s disappearance lightly,” he snaps. “And I know if he was here right now, he wouldn’t hold Elizabeth captive because he at least has enough common sense to realize what she went through. He would set her free.”

Marcel stares threateningly at Josh and he jabs his finger against his chest. “I suggest you remind yourself of who you’re speaking to, boy. I brought you into this because I thought I could trust you enough to watch her. The minute you prove to me otherwise, you’re dead.”

Josh opens his mouth to argue more, but Elizabeth steps in between both of the boys before anything more can be done. She has grown to like Josh and she will not see him killed over an argument about her. “Marcel, _enough,_ ” she snaps. “Why are you doing this to me? We used to be friends. We were on good terms when I disappeared. I want to go home. Leave me out of this stupid fight.”

Marcel shakes his head and the look in his eyes is almost remorseful. It’s almost as if he is at war with himself. It doesn’t make sense. “It’s just politics, Elizabeth. No vampires equal no empire,” he attempts to explain. “I’m doing what I have to to protect the city. Trust me, I don’t like it any more than you do.”

Reacting purely on impulse, Elizabeth raises her hand and smacks him hard across the face. “ _Politics?_ I am not some toy that you can use in a fight, Marcel!” She yells. “This cannot all be because you’re angry with Niklaus. You know how bad his temper is. Holding me from him will only make it worse. What else is going on?”

Marcel takes a step back as he rubs his cheek, an unwavering smile on his face. “It’s good to see you’re getting your strength back,” he compliments happily. “I had Davina put up a special spell for you, which includes a strong barrier spell. Please do not make this any harder than it needs to be, Elizabeth. I don’t like this any more than you do, but something has to be done.”

Elizabeth shakes her head in disagreement, unable to understand how Marcel could be so cold to her and how he could treat her like this after setting her free. “Haven’t you thought that Klaus has been a little unhinged because of his grief?” She asks quietly. “Ten years is nothing compared to the hundreds that we have lived.”

“And you think I should hand you over and risk his actions continuing? You’ve been gone for a long time, Elizabeth. There are more important things I have to consider. I’m doing this for the sake of New Orleans,” Marcel argues. “If I use you as leverage, then Klaus has to bend. He won’t expect you to be alive.”

Elizabeth cannot help but feel disgusted towards the man in front of her. This is not the kid that she remembers, this is not the man Klaus raised. “How can you be so sure that Klaus will even respond to knowing I’m alive? It has been a decade, Marcel,” she bids, playing devil’s advocate. The more she pokes at him, the more he talks. She needs information.

Marcel reaches out and he lightly grabs onto her biceps as if to make a point of some kind; As if to show her that he can be trusted. “Trust me, he will respond. You’re the most famous girl in the community,” he says with a bright smile. “This is not just about you anymore, Elizabeth. I’m fighting him this way because it’s for the best. I will get my way. Bigger things are coming and we all need to be on the same page when it shows up. I'm trying to bring peace.”  

“What do you mean?” She pries, searching. “What’s coming?”

“You don’t need to know about it right now. Given what you have been through, I should hold onto it until I have more information,” he sighs. “Just know, I am doing all of this to keep you and everyone in the city safe. If I can stop this one fight, we'll all be on the same team to stop the next one.”

Forcing him off of her, Elizabeth shoves Marcel back and as he turns to leave the room, he gives her one last apologetic look. In a fit of rage, she picks up the closest chair and throws it across the room. The chair shatters into chunks of wood and splinters, decorating part of the bed and floor. Josh rubs his forehead tiredly and Elizabeth can tell that this is bothering him just as much as it is her. This tactic is all wrong and it will only get Marcel harmed if he refuses to let her go when Klaus asks for her.

“Josh, I need your help. Marcel cannot get away with this. He will not survive the outcome,” she pleads, turning to the young vampire with urgency. “It will tear Klaus apart and if you care at all about this city, then you have to help me.”

Josh nods as if he had already been thinking those exact words and he moves to sit at the wooden table beside the large window. “I know. I think I can swing something, but it’s going to be tricky. Marcel will kill me if I get caught and Klaus will for sure kill me if I do this wrong. It won’t be easy.”

Elizabeth tilts her head to the side. “What do you mean?” She asks. “What are you thinking?”

“I can’t do anything directly,” Josh says. “Marcel put me in charge of you, which means I’m dead if I lose track of you. However, I know a few guys who may be able to help. I can reach out to Nathan too. He’s going crazy over this.”

“It’s crucial that we do this right,” she reminds him. “I’m not even sure if Klaus still cares about me as much as Marcel thinks he does, but I have to believe.”

Josh makes a soft face and he gently touches her wrist, nodding his head. “Trust me, he still cares. They all still care. Rebekah never stopped looking for you,” he explains. “Your disappearance made a lot of messes and it’s time to pick those messes up. Hell, there’s even a festival in your name now. Things are not the same.”

“Released from prison and thrust into a war,” Elizabeth jokes with a smile. “Things can never be easy, can they?”

Josh snorts, his mood lightening up. “When you’re dealing with the Mikaelsons, nothing will ever be that easy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is about 98% finished now, which means I can most likely start uploading chapters on a regular basis. Chapters 5 and 6 are where things actually get started. ;)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is reading and to those who have left Kudos! I appreciate all of you. No matter how terrible or good a story is, it takes a lot of work to write them. I spent a year putting this story together, so I hope you guys enjoy where it goes! I have actually started writing a squeal to this story, which will feature a new problem and a new 'big bad'. It will also include a few TVD characters too. Hopefully it'll be good to go by the time this story is fully uploaded! :)


	4. Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marcel moves forward with his plan, going about it in all of the wrong ways, and Elizabeth struggles to understand what has him so freaked out. Ultimately, she and Josh are faced with two options. Break out or wait for a war.

Elizabeth stares at him, hoping he will see reason.

            If this man had not been raised by Klaus, if he had not been her friend at one point in their long history, then she would rip his heart from his chest and put an end to all of this unnecessary nonsense.

            “Will you please cooperate?” Marcel asks, trying to keep his voice as level as possible.

            Elizabeth ignores him and turns her gaze out the window. Now thoroughly tired of her refusal, Marcel makes a move to forcibly grab her hands and she, being much stronger than him, sends her fist powerfully to his gut. Marcel flies backward into the wall space above the bed frame and he curses loudly, falling onto the mattress with a thud. Josh watches from where he stands, both impressed and mildly amused. He knows if he were to ever try a move like that, he would be dead and on the ground within two seconds.

            “Marcel, it would be in your best interest to not grab me like that ever again,” she warns heatedly as she stands violently from her chair. “I don’t agree with this insane plan of yours. The easiest way to stop this fight with Klaus would be to hand me over.”

            Josh lightly touches her shoulder and she flinches under his touch, briefly squeezing her eyes shut. Her brain is still hardwired to associate pain and force with touch, no matter how gentle it may be. _Conditioned._ Josh pulls his hand away slowly and she turns to him to find a look of apology on his face. In the days they have spent cooped up in this hotel room, she has grown to trust him and so, it’s not much a surprise when she offers him her wrists. Josh, although he would much rather not, puts the old shackles on her. She knows very little about their purpose, but she knows they are spelled to keep her at bay. With a glum expression, she gazes at them and shakes her head in disappointment. This is wrong.

            “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I know you have been through a lot and I will do better to keep that in mind after we get through this one little bump in the road,” Marcel apologizes as he approaches cautiously. “Now, please don’t fight me. I have to blindfold you.”

            An expression of deep panic spreads on her face at the sight of the black cloth, but she chokes it back long before Marcel can see what kind of terror he is causing her. She is stronger than this… she has to be. Unwillingly, she allows him to put the blindfold over her eyes and before she knows it, Marcel is gagging her with another piece of fabric. Struggling, she tries her best to fight him, but she fails. Her heart is racing against her chest, she is afraid.

            “This is for your own good, Elizabeth. I’m so sorry that I have to do it like this,” Marcel reminds her and she can hear the true regret in his voice. He does care about her suffering and if he believes another fight is on the horizon, then it best be over something terrible or all of this will have been for nothing.

            “You have a hilarious definition of sorry if you think blindfolding her _and_ gagging her is for her own good,” Josh mutters. “What is she going to do? You already have her shackled.”

“Shut it, Josh,” Marcel snaps. “I don’t want to hear another complaint from your mouth. If this goes well, you can feed her and I’ll even let you out of here.”

            Grumbling a long series of mocks and complaints under his breath, Josh carefully begins to guide her along and she follows to the best of her ability. With no way to see or speak, she is putting all of her energy into listening to her surroundings. There are a couple of voices nearby and she can hear the six feet that follow closely behind. She does her best not to listen to the human heartbeats that they pass, trying to stave off her hunger. Although she had been fed on the first day, it has been a while since Marcel gave her a serving of blood that was worth a damn. Marcel, of course, tried to defend the starvation by saying it’s to keep her from running, but all it did was piss her _and_ Josh off. To hear the sound of a strong heartbeat now is making her mouth water. It has been decades since she has fed off the vein and although she has never cared much for it, the idea seems increasingly pleasant now. She would do almost anything to sink her fangs into the soft neck of somebody healthy and warm.

            When they step outside, she shudders from the warm breeze that blows past her until she is gingerly nudged into the seat of a car. While she was under the care of Charles, she was never allowed outside. Until her rescuing, it had been ten long years since she felt fresh air on her skin and to feel it now after everything is almost euphoric. The air is warm, the sun is down… the perfect combination for summer weather. If she didn’t have a gag in her mouth, she would be smiling from ear to ear. This has always been one of her favorite times of the year and she knows, one day, she will be able to enjoy it once again.

            Dealing with the side effects of the trauma she went through has been difficult to handle alone. She has not allowed herself to address how she feel about it because she knows the minute she does, everything will fall apart. She flinches when people touch her, she can hardly sleep at night without going right back to her cell, and she won’t even look at herself in the mirror. Her senses are stuck on fight or flight and she fears that she may kill the first person who tries to be funny and scares her. She had forgotten what it’s like to live her life without fearing whether or not she will be fed. She cannot remember the last time she woke up without thinking about what kind of torture Charles will put her through.

            “Elizabeth, squeeze my hand if you’re alright,” Josh says quietly as he slides his hand into hers. “Your heart is beating pretty hard.”

            Although she has a million things to say, although she would love to explain why she is not okay, she squeezes his hand and does her best to relax into the leather seat. Josh seems reluctant, but he pulls his hand away and lightly squeezes her shoulder to give her some form of shitty reassurance. She will never feel better until she is back at home where she belongs. She knows, however, that Josh is on her side. For whatever reason, he has chosen to protect her and she will never be able to express how grateful she has become for his presence.

            “Elizabeth, when we get there, it’s important that you stay calm and do exactly what I tell you,” Marcel says from the front of the car. “Klaus is already going to be upset that I have you like this. It’s going to get worse when I take you away again. I promise this will all be over before you know it. Nod if you understand.”

            Instead of nodding as he requested, Elizabeth raises one of her shackled hands and flips him off to make a stupidly angry point. Josh laughs beside her and she cannot help but smile awkwardly with the fabric in her mouth.

            “Man, I wish I could have known you sooner,” Josh compliments. “You’re way cooler than I thought.”

            Elizabeth shrugs sheepishly in response, finding it difficult to speak with crap in her mouth. Suddenly, the car comes to a stop and people start to get out. Elizabeth stays in her place until she feels Josh grab for her arm. Despite her preference to walk on her own, she would much rather walk on her own, she allows him to guide her through where ever the hell they are. The building they enter is an older one, she can tell by the musty smell and by the way the floorboards creak underneath her feet. If Marcel is looking to make a deal with Klaus, then they must be within the city. She does not see why they would try to arrange something outside of city limits.

            Carefully, Josh stations her near a wall where he takes off her blindfold. She blinks a couple of times to adjust to the dim lighting, a little disoriented. Confused, she looks around to find absolutely nothing in the room she stands in. They’re in an abandoned home and not a single living occupant can be found.

            “They’re going to talk in the other room and when Marcel is ready, I’m going to bring you in,” Josh explains and Elizabeth nods. “I know this is going to be hard for you, but I promise it will not be like this for much longer. We’ll figure this out. Hopefully before Klaus goes on a murder spree.”

            Distracted by the sound of footsteps and a door opening, she tunes in to the room on the other side of the wall. She can hear a heartbeat and the sound of someone breathing, entering the room from the opposite side. For a long minute, nobody speaks and she wonders who could possibly be in the room with Marcel, but then the person speaks and Elizabeth smiles weakly. He’s grouchy and he’s demanding as ever, but it’s really him. She remembers his voice perfectly.

            “ _You dragged me all the way out here to talk terms. Let’s hear it, then. I don’t have all day_ ,” Klaus says irritably. “ _Hope is expected at her dance class. Hayley will not tolerate her being late again._ ”

            Hearing his agitated voice brings tears to her and not because she is sad, but much rather because she knows how hard it’s going to be on both of them once Marcel takes her away back to the hotel room where she has been kept for days. They have not seen each other for a decade and this will surely break his heart. She does not want to do this to him and yet she finds that she has no real say in the matter. She is just a pawn in this fight.

            “ _Then I will keep this short for Hope’s sake_ ,” Marcel says. “ _My terms are simple. Stop killing my guys and let us control the city in the peace you promised us or I keep the thing that you loved and lost. I’m done with this fight. It ends now. I mean it when I say there are more important things coming. We all need to be on the same page and there has to be peace if we’re going to win.”_

            Klaus does not speak for a while and Elizabeth knows that he thinks Marcel is full of shit. As far as he knows, Marcel has no leverage that is worth a damn. The boy he raised simply cannot have anything worth trading for.

            “ _And what on earth could that possibly be? I have everything I want and need back home_ ,” Klaus says, attempting to call Marcel’s bluff. “ _You have nothing that I want._ ”

            “ _Are you sure about that? Because I seem to recall a pretty big loss that we all suffered about ten years ago_ ,” Marcel points out maliciously. He keeps his voice strong and fierce; he is determined to show Klaus that he is not playing around. “ _A human got in contact with my guys about an old female vampire who has been missing for quite some time. Sound familiar?_ ”

            She may not be in the room, but she knows Klaus is starting to put two and two together. Her heart is racing as she continues to listen in and she wonders for a moment if he can hear it. Tears are falling down her cheeks and she hates herself for crying, but she simply cannot help it. She wants to so badly break free of the shackles, but she has been warned three times now that they have been cursed with a pretty nasty spell. She is stuck. Seeing her pain, Josh pulls a napkin from his pocket and he mops up her tears, doing whatever he can to make this easier on her.

            “ _What are you implying_?” Klaus demands, white-hot anger rising in his voice.

            “ _I’m implying that a couple of weeks ago, I got a call about a vampire who has been held captive for the past ten years in an Augustine knock off facility. I got her Klaus and I’ll be more than willing to give her back as long as we come to an agreement_ ,” Marcel barters.

            “ _I am tired of hearing your lies, Marcel. You have no real leverage over me. Elizabeth is gone_. _She left and has made sure that she cannot be found,_ ” Klaus spats venomously.

            Marcel laughs coldly at Klaus’ assumption, knowing just how wrong he is. “ _Josh, bring her in. I want to see the look on his face._ ”

            Elizabeth shakes her head, begging Josh not to do this. She cannot hurt Klaus in this way. Sadly, he grips her shoulder and looks into her eyes, silently telling her that it’s going to be okay. Pushing her now, they walk around the corner and into the next room where two men stand on either side of an old, beaten table. Her stunning brown eyes land on Klaus’ and it takes the hybrid a moment to stop glaring at Marcel before he looks to her. No words come out of his mouth, only a look of disbelief can be seen. More tears fall down her cheeks as she looks to him, wanting to go to him. He has changed much over the last decade, but his face remains the same. Desperate, she tries to walk towards him, but Josh stops her as if to silently reminded her of the rules Marcel set in place.

            “Is that you, Elizabeth?” Klaus asks, voice wavering.

            Elizabeth nods her head and the words she has been dying to say for so long are burning on her tongue. Klaus looks back at Marcel with the means to kill and all she wants is to be free of this. She wishes to be free of her gag and shackles…. To be back with her family and the people that she loves.

            “Marcel, what the bloody hell have you done? If you know where she was kept, then you must know what she went through. Rescuing her just to keep her prisoner? Have you lost your mind?" Klaus seethes angrily. “Release her to me and I will go in peace. There will be no more deaths. I will leave your men to go about their business so long as they do not interfere with mine.”

            Marcel looks over to her with the same look of remorse he has been giving ever since she saw him for the first time after waking up, but his face remains unchanged. “I’m doing what needs to be done, Klaus.”

            She keeps her eyes on Klaus as he struggles between wanting to attack Marcel and wanting to come to her aid. However, before any decisions can be made, Marcel reveals a disturbing truth that she had not known until now. In fact, it seems Josh was not aware of the thoroughness of Marcel’s plan either. He was keeping secrets from both of them.

            "Watch yourself, Klaus. I had Davina link Elizabeth to me. Any harm you cause me, you cause to her. While we're at it, I might as well mention that if anyone but Josh tries to take off those shackles, Elizabeth will immediately desiccate and you will need a special spell to wake her up. Only those who put them on can take them off."

            Elizabeth’s eyes widen and she looks to Marcel with horror just as Klaus slams his fist into the table that stands in the middle of the room. Tensions are rising and Marcel is making on the biggest mistakes of his life. Making an enemy of Klaus is not wise. This cannot happen. She has to say something.

            “Marcel, give her to me. I'll agree to your terms so long as you respect what I have put in place. You are making her suffer when she has already endured too much. Let her come home," Klaus barters, gesturing to Elizabeth while doing so.

            Growing incredibly weak from her hunger, Elizabeth’s knees give out and Josh barely catches her in time before she crashes to the ground. Klaus looks to her with anger fueled by worry and she can tell that all he wants to do is cross the room and take her out of here, but he knows better than to risk what could happen to her. They are both at a loss here and it is all because of Marcel’s plan that he insists is necessary.

            “Have you been starving her?” Klaus demands, his jaw clenched.

            Marcel looks to the ground, admittedly ashamed for what he is doing to her. “I fed her on the first day, but I had to make sure she stayed weak. I couldn’t risk her breaking free. She’s my leverage, Klaus.”

            Disgusted, Klaus scoffs and breathes inwards deeply. “You have lost your mind. If you do not give her to me you will face my wrath, Marcellus. I already agreed to your terms," he threatens. “What more could you possibly want?”

            Shaking his head, Marcel jabs a finger in the direction of the man who raised him. “No, _this_ is how it’s going to work,” he says sternly. “I’m going to let you think about your answer. I’m going to take Elizabeth away again, you will not see her and you will not hear from her. You are going to take my terms seriously. I’ll be in touch.”

            Elizabeth turns her head to Josh, pleading to him with her eyes. Getting the message, he discreetly reaches up and pulls the gag from her mouth. Frantically, she turns her attention back to Klaus. He watches her as emotions slam into him all at once. He had no idea what had happened to her.

            “It’s going to be okay, Klaus,” she promises, her voice wavering.

            Marcel turns to her, alarmed to hear her voice. “Josh, put that gag back in her mouth right now,” he snaps.

            Elizabeth pulls against Josh’s hold, trying to get to Klaus. “I’ll figure this out, Klaus,” she says as Josh begins to tug her out of the room. She fights against him, keeping her eyes on the hybrid.

            Marcel struts out of the room not too long after and as Josh pulls Elizabeth along, she screams and desperately tries to break free. Klaus watches after her, unable to do anything. He shouts after her telling her it will be okay and as Elizabeth sobs, she stops fighting.

            “I will come for you, Elizabeth!” Klaus calls out. “I will break you free of this!”

            Elizabeth paces the room angrily, unable to do much within the four walls that keep her confined to her room. She feels as if Marcel has lost his goddamn mind. He’s putting so much on the line for his empire and it makes her wonder what all has happened in her absence. Had things fallen apart? Has Klaus caused too much damage in her absence? She sighs. Klaus knows she is alive and she’s sure that by now, he has passed the news along to Elijah if he is not daggered somewhere in a coffin. She hopes her family is still alive.

            She has no daylight ring and she’s starving. Regretfully, she is using all of her energy to keep herself awake and angry. She’s not sure what she’s going to do when she’s free, but she can safely assume that it will be nothing pleasant. There will be blood. Those who have hurt her will pay. To her right, Josh enters the room with a pained expression on his face. He had been gone with Marcel for the past hour and Elizabeth can only imagine what was said given what had happened today.

            “Do I ever want to know?” She asks with a hoarse voice.

            Josh shakes his head and he plops down on the edge of Elizabeth’s bed with heavy guilt pressing down on his shoulders. “Marcel believes he is doing the right thing by playing the game this way. I can see where he is coming from, but it’s like he’s not even taking your feelings into account,” he rambles. “He doesn’t like what he’s doing, but he’s not going to bend either. He was serious about getting us all on the same page for whatever issue he sees coming. He wants peace so we’ll work together.”

            Elizabeth runs her hand through her hair and she resists the urge to do something she would surely regret later. If she could get her hands on a little more blood, she would be strong enough to get out of this. However, Marcel is playing his game smart much like Charles did. He’s only feeding her enough to keep her alive, but unlike Charlies, Marcel is feeding her enough to keep her healthy. She feels stuck and she feels pathetic for having to rely on others to help her.

            “Look, I’m not a fan of what he’s doing either. He’s so focused on keeping the peace that he can hardly see how he’s damaging the relationships he wants to fix. Something has him scared,” Josh suddenly says. “That’s why I’ve decided that it’s best to move forward with the plan. I’m going to get you out of here tomorrow.”

            Elizabeth looks to him, baffled. “I thought you said you have to be careful around Marcel?” She asks. “He could kill you, Josh.”

            Josh nods, having already considered all outcomes. “Nathan and I are getting people to help. You still have a lot of vamps on your side from when you were around,” he explains. “If I can talk to Davina, I can get her to drop the spells she has on you. She has no freaking idea what she’s doing for Marcel, he’s keeping her in the dark. She’ll put the barrier spell back up as soon as we’re clear of the room.”

            Mulling over the idea, Elizabeth sighs. “I don’t want you to get killed over this, Josh. You’ve been good to me.”

            “A couple of werewolves I know will be waiting with the getaway car outside and they will take you to a safe house,” Josh continues. “From there, we will get you to Klaus after a few days have gone by and Marcel has calmed down. When we’re on the move, another witch, Vincent, will cast a cloaking spell so Marcel cannot track us.”

            Elizabeth thinks through all of the details and although she knows several things could go wrong in a matter of seconds, this is the best shot at escaping she has. She knows she has to take this leap of faith. “What makes you so sure Davina will help?” She asks curiously.

            “Davina is blindly helping Marcel,” Josh explains. “He’s lying to her about what all of these spells are for. I’ll tell her everything. She’ll help us. Your name is good around here. She will listen.”

            After taking a much-needed deep breath, Elizabeth finally agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. Things start picking up in the next chapter!


	5. Movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the move, Elizabeth and Josh break out of Marcel's hold. At the safe house, Elizabeth sees a familiar face and finds herself reaching out to another.

_“Tell me what you think about this, Love.”_

_Klaus sets down the paintbrush he had been using and he turns the easel around to face Elizabeth who sits on the couch with a book in her hands. The painting almost immediately takes her breath away and she stares at it with a small smile on her lips. As she had been lost in her own world, reading another novel to fulfill her heart’s desire, Klaus had been painting and he was painting her. She gets up and walks closer to the painting for a better look. He put so much detail in it that she feels as if she is looking at herself through his eyes. She has known Klaus puts his heart into his works, but she has never quite seen it like this._

_“It’s beautiful, Klaus,” she compliments with a smile. “You’re gifted.”_

_Klaus smiles sheepishly as he shifts his eyes back to the painting. “It does help the artist to have a beautiful reference.”_

_Elizabeth blushes with a small smile, admiring the work once again. “You flatter me, Klaus…”_

_Klaus laughs quietly and sets the paintbrush down. His hands are covered in paint and the front of his shirt has been smudge with shades of blue and brown. “Love, it goes much deeper than flattery,” he muses. “You are truly magnificent.”_

            “Josh, he _needs_ to believe something is wrong if this is going to work,” Elizabeth says strictly as she shoves a syringe towards him. “He has to believe something is wrong with me. We need him out of the way for our window.”

            Josh grasps the syringe and looks at it with distaste. “You are the _only_ person I know who would willingly torture themselves after going through the wringer for ten years,” he mutters blandly.

            Elizabeth smiles proudly, pulling her hair back to expose her neck to him. “Let’s just say I’m used to the idea,” she reveals darkly. “That syringe is full of highly concentrated Vervain. Charles used it on me almost every other night, I’m used to the pain. It’s strong enough to take down the biggest and badest vampires.”

            “You know, when you told me Davina was getting you something that would cause a distraction, I did not think it would be something like this,” Josh comments as he thinks back to last night when he had gone off to go speak to the young witch.

            “To be fair, I told you it would be leaning towards the unpleasant side of things,” she points out. “Just do it. I can handle it. I’ve been through much worse. This is nothing.”

            Josh looks down at the syringe doubtfully, but he knows Elizabeth will simply do it to herself if she has to. In one swift movement, Josh stabs the needle into her neck and he apologizes relentlessly for the pain she is about to go through. Like fire, the Vervain spreads through her veins and she collapses to the ground, screaming and thrashing. Josh drops down to his knees and he pulls her into his arms, yelling for Marcel’s help. Although Elizabeth cannot think clearly through the haze of Vervain, she is pleased with Josh’s urgency. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he is actually worried for her.

            “Marcel!” Josh yells. “Something is wrong!”

            With his speed, Marcel rushes into the room to find Elizabeth’s body writing in pain and Josh desperately tries to calm her down. “What happened to her?” Marcel demands.

            “I-I don’t know! She was fine and then she collapsed,” Josh explains hurriedly. “She’s in pain, Marcel. Something is wrong. I already tried giving her my blood. Nothing is working.”

            Dropping down to his knee, Marcel grabs Elizabeth’s face and forces her to look at him. He can see the true anguish on her face as she silently sobs through a clenched jaw and convulses against Josh’s body. “I’ll go get Davina,” Marcel says angrily. “Keep an eye on her.”

            As soon as he speeds out of the room, Josh grabs his phone and dials Davina. He then lifts Elizabeth’s body over his shoulder and stands from the ground, idly waiting by the door. “Davina, now,” he says urgently into his phone. “Marcel is on his way.”

            “ _I got it, numbnuts,_ ” Davina responds. “ _Just go before it’s too late!_ ”

            Rushing out of the hotel room, Josh speeds off in the direction of the back exit. He cradles Elizabeth in his arms as she bites back her groans. She violently shakes and breathes in through her clenched teeth, fangs dropping. Shoving past the metal push door, Josh makes it safely outside. He bolts quickly to the rendezvous point, running as fast as he can through the blocks. Several people watch as if Josh is a mad man, but he does not slow down. Marcel will be after them as soon as he realizes Elizabeth is gone.

            At the SUV, two men address them before allowing them to climb into the car to get ready to go. Josh carefully sets Elizabeth on the left side of the middle seats before rushing around to the other side.

            “Step on it!” He calls, the stress in his voice.

            As the car takes off, Josh reaches into his coat pocket for another syringe. In it is the antidote to the Vervain. He carefully leans over and stabs it into Elizabeth’s neck, bringing her immediate relief. She heaves inwards and lurches forward, seeing clearly again. Her head is still spinning, but the pain is gone and her thoughts are organized.

            “Just so you know, you guys are fucking insane,” a man says from the seats in the very back. “Marcel will kill us all if he catches up with us.”

            Yelping in surprise, Elizabeth turns around quickly to find a man wearing a black coat and a gray t-shirt. He stares back at her with a friendly smile and she takes note of the spell set of beside him in the open seat. This must be the other witch.

            “Vincent, what are you doing here?” Josh asks. “You’re supposed to be working at my apartment!”

            “Yeah? Well, you failed to mention that there would be a couple of handy dandy vamps in your place while you do this job for Marcel,” Vincent snaps back bitterly.

            Josh’s face twists into confusion for a brief moment as he is unsure of what Vincent could be talking about, but then something clicks in his head and he groans loudly. “Goddamn it, Aiden,” he curses. “Those weren’t vamps. They were wolves. I guess he brought people in to keep the place safe until we get there.”

            Vincent shakes his head irritably and resumes his work on the spell. “Doesn’t matter, I’m here now. Talk amongst yourselves. I need to focus.”

            Elizabeth turns back to face Josh and she can feel the nerves that are coming off of him; it's almost as if he is about to explode. He is not the kind of person who goes behind people’s backs to get things done and she can see that now. Josh is stronger than what people give him credit for. To come up with a plan like this given the circumstances is incredible. 

            “What’s the plan after this?” She asks.

            “When we get to the safe house, my apartment, we’ll drop you off and then I’m headed to the Bayou for a few nights,” Josh explains. “I could have included Klaus, but knowing him… he would have tried to intervene and somebody would have gotten killed. He’s staying in the dark for now.”

            Elizabeth laughs quietly at the dark humor in this situation. She rests against the seat of the SUV, looking out on the nightlife. She no longer feels the pain from the Vervain, but she is weak because of it. From within his coat, Josh’s phone begins to ring and Elizabeth’s ears perk up at the sound of it. She tunes in to listen to what’s going on, curious to see where they stand.

            “ _Josh, the plan worked, but Marcel found out you guys are gone. He’s sending out guys to hunt you down_ ,” Davina warns.

            Josh groans and slams his head against the headrest of his seat. “Alright, alright. Keep Marcel distracted. We’re almost there,” he begs.

            “ _What am I supposed to do? Chase after him? He left with the search party, Josh,_ ” Davina responds irritably. " _If this gets any bigger, Klaus will get wind of it. You need to come up with a plan and you need to come up with it now._ "

            Josh curses under his breath and as if the universe is orchestrating some hilarious game, something hard lands on top of the car. The werewolf who is driving swerves the car and off flies a vampire who had tried to break in. Looking in the rear-view mirror, Elizabeth spots two other cars following them and three more vampires are running on foot down the streets. She knows this plan is toast if she does not do something drastic.

            “Josh, we’re about to do something stupid,” She warns him.

            Before he can ask any questions, Elizabeth opens the car door and grabs Josh’s arm as tightly as she can hold. Together, they leap from the moving car and crash on the sidewalk, tumbling and rolling into a jewelry stand. Groaning, Josh pulls a piece of metal from his arm as Elizabeth jumps to her feet, eyes darting in every direction. She looks back on the vampires who chase them and she desperately bends down to pull Josh to his feet. Moving quickly, they take off down the street and narrowly miss a saxophone player who had not been paying much attention to his surroundings.

            Breathing heavily, Elizabeth takes a sharp turn down an alleyway. She skids to a stop and picks up an old picture frame that had been left by the dumpster. With force, she smashes it to pieces and picks up two of the make-shift stakes. Josh watches with wide eyes and although he wants to ask what she is doing, he does not get the chance. Two of the vampires come around the corner and attempt to seize Elizabeth, but she throws them back and plunges one stake into the heart of a bald man with a skull tattoo on his hand. The other vamp grabs her shirt from the back and she quickly runs herself off the dumpster, throwing him over her shoulder. She plunges the stake into his heart. Josh watches in amazement, a hand in his hair. She’s can still fight.

            “Holy shit…” he mutters.

            Smiling slightly, Elizabeth grabs his arm and starts dragging him back out to the street. She knows leaving the bodies there will only cause trouble, but she has faith that Marcel will pick up after her. Josh takes the lead as he knows where to go and through many twists and turns, they come to a chain-link fence. They both scale it with ease, but Elizabeth struggles to stick to her landing. She does not have much energy left and will fall unconscious before too long. Breathing heavily, she leans on Josh for support. She needs to feed.

            “We’re almost there,” he mumbles. “Don’t pass out on me yet. You should have told me the Vervain would do a number on you.”

            Moving carefully now, Josh pushes through the crowds and continues to hold Elizabeth close until they are standing at the back entrance for an apartment complex. Josh exhales with relief and opens the door.

            “This is where we split,” he says with a smile. “It’s at the top, door number D15. Aiden will have to give you permission to enter.”

            Elizabeth smiles warmly and pulls Josh into an unexpected hug. “Take care of yourself, Josh,” she says warmly. “You have no idea how grateful I am for you.”

            Laughing anxiously, Josh hugs her back tightly. “Just lay low until we’re ready to move you. Klaus will probably catch wind of what happened and when that happens, he’s going to come looking for you. I’m trying to keep the dead body count low.”

            With one last look, the two separate and Elizabeth heads inside. The hallway is dimly lit and her hands are shaking with nerves. She hasn’t felt this exhilarated for years. Smiling slightly, she climbs the stairs and uses the railing for support. A happy couple emerges from their apartment and they stare at her, eyebrows drawn together in concern. They have not seen her face around before. Surely they would have remembered a beautiful young woman with eyes as dark and honest as hers.

            “Are you alright, miss?” A woman asks. “You look a little lost.”

            Elizabeth swallows thickly. She can hear their hearts beating and she can hear the blood rushing through their veins. She is so thirsty. Biting down hard, she grinds her cheek in between her teeth until the skin breaks and blood washes over her tongue. Her instincts subside. “I’m looking for apartment D15.”

            The man smiles kindly and points down the hallway. “There’s going to be another staircase at the end down there. Take it all the way up and there will be a door labeled with a large D. Apartment fifteen will be at the end of the hall on the right.”

            “Thank you,” Elizabeth says, smiling.

            Moving with stiff legs, she moves off and tries to put the sound of their hearts out of her mind. She will not feed on them. Taking a deep breath, she takes to the stairs again and shoves her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans. As soon as she is able to, she will get her hands on a new daylight ring. She hasn’t been able to go into the sun for a long time and she misses how it feels against her skin without the burning. At the top of the stairs, she finds the ‘D’ door and pulls it open. On the other side, there is another hallway, but she can see the apartment she is looking for at the end. Quickening her pace, she walks until she is face to face with D15. Lifting a weak fist, she knocks on the wood and waits for somebody to answer it.

            “You’re late,” a man says, opening the door.

            Elizabeth stares up at the man with a raised eyebrow, unsure of how she should respond. He looks young and wears a dark flannel, bringing out his bright eyes. “We had to jump out of the car and run for it,” she explains.

            The man smiles slightly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Elizabeth Walker,” he muses. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

            “That seems to be a reoccurring theme around here…” she mumbles in response.

            The man laughs, gesturing for her to come into Josh's apartment. “You’re a famous girl, Liz. My name is Aiden. I’m not sure if Josh talked much about me,” he says. “I invite you in.”

            Elizabeth turns to face him with a tired face. “He mentioned your name,” she says. “Werewolf, right?”

            Aiden nods, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. “And shameless boyfriend. Don’t worry, I won’t bite,” he jokes and Elizabeth laughs. “I have to head out to make sure Josh gets out of the city in one piece, but you’ll be safe here. We have a friend here to keep an eye on you.”

            Elizabeth breathes in deeply, taking another look at the living room. “Guess I’ll set up camp,” she jokes lightly.

            Aiden laughs and points to the breakfast counter where a few items rest idly. “There’s a phone over there for you from Davina. She put a couple of numbers in there for absolute emergencies only,” he explains. “On the bar-stool there, there is a bag of clothes and in the fridge is food and blood.”

            “Thank you for your help,” she says wholeheartedly. This is the safest she has felt in a decade.

            “I don’t usually like playing into Klaus’ favor, but Josh cares about you,” Aiden says warmly. “I’ll do anything to help him.”

            Coming up short on important things to say, Aiden leaves and Elizabeth is once again alone. She exhales slowly and wonders off to the fridge for a blood bag. Relief flows through her body once the blood goes down her throat and she shamelessly moans, head falling back just slightly. Unsure of what to do with her time, she heads over to the breakfast bar where the phone waits to be used. She picks it up and unlocks it, scrolling through the impressively short list contacts. Technology has changed quite a bit in the past decade.

 

> **Davina**  
>  Josh  
>  Aiden  
>  Klaus

            Her thumb hovers over Klaus’ name. She cannot imagine why Davina would put his number in if they wanted to keep him in the dark. Maybe Davina knew what she would inevitably do, but even that hardly makes sense to her. Why would she do this? Sighing, she shakes her head to get rid of the thought. Fully aware that what she is about to do is probably the most stupid thing she has done in a decade, she presses on Klaus’ name and dials his number. The line rings for a while until his familiar grouchy voice can be heard.

            “ _Who is this?_ ” He asks, coldly.

            Elizabeth lets out a shaky breath, laughing as tears well up into her eyes. “It’s me, Niklaus,” she responds in a gentle whisper.

            “ _Elizabeth? Where are you?_ ”

            She takes a seat on the bar-stool, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m safe, Klaus. That’s all you need to know right now.”

            “ _I can come get you, Elizabeth_ ,” he tells her. “ _Just tell me where you are._ ”

            “You’ll put lives in danger if I tell you, Klaus,” she replies knowingly. “I’ll be okay. Josh and Davina broke me out. Please do not come looking for me.”

            Klaus sighs, wanting to so desperately track her down. “ _Even if I promise not to kill anyone?_ ” He asks, a smile can be heard on his voice.

            Elizabeth laughs and looks down at the empty blood bag in her hands. “Especially if you promise not to,” she says. “It’s not you who I am worried about, anyways. Josh put a lot on the line to get me out. Marcel is probably hunting him down as we speak.”

            For a long while, the two share a peaceful silence. Elizabeth leans back in her chair, taking a deep breath. She feels good.

            “ _Are you alright, Elizabeth? Have you fed?_ ” Klaus asks softly, his voice is sensitive.

            “Josh stocked the fridge,” she informs. “I’m okay, Klaus. I promise. You don’t have to worry about me right now.”

            “ _Elijah is eager to see you and Rebekah is on her way home. We’ve all missed you dearly,_ ” Klaus says and she can hear the hurt in his voice.

            “I thought about you guys every day,” she admits. “I was so scared, Klaus.”

            “ _We need not go into it right now, love. You should rest,_ ” Klaus advises.

            Wiping away her fallen tears once more, Elizabeth breathes inwards and nods her head even though he cannot see it. “I’ll see you soon.”

            Because she cannot bear to hear his response, she ends the call and sets the phone down on the counter where it rested just prior. The bathroom door opens then and out walks Nathan who she had not heard. With wide eyes, she stares at him and she feels as if her brain is stuttering. His hair is wet, suggesting a recent shower. He smiles at her and gestures openly with his arms.

            “So, this is what you look like when you’re not covered in blood and dirt,” he says happily, still smiling. "You look good." 

            Elizabeth leaves the bar-stool behind as she rushes over to him and pulls him into her arms. She hugs him tightly, overcome with relief to see that he is still alive. She will have to gripe at Josh later for not telling her he would be here.

            “You got me out,” she says as she pulls away.

            Nathan shrugs his shoulders as if it’s not a big deal. “After watching Charles inject you with that stuff, I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached out to some of my contacts and decided it was time to bust you out,” he explains. “I had been planning it for a while, but it was then or never. Now I’m on the run.”

            it shouldn't be this way. Shaking her head, Elizabeth takes a step back to really look at him and it feels as if this is the first time she is doing so. Up until now, she had never seen him without his guard gear on. Now, he carries no dart gun and he wears no vest. Instead, he wears a tight gray t-shirt and blue jeans. Around his right wrist is a watch and around his neck are dog tags. She stares a the tags curiously.

            “You served?” She asks curiously.

            Nathan laughs and looks down at his tags. It feels like a lifetime ago. “Yeah, I served for a few years after I graduated from high school,” he recalls. “Charles roped me in when I got out.”

            Elizabeth tilts her head to the side slightly. She wants to ask how that happened, but it’s not a pleasant topic for either of them. Ultimately, she decides it will be a question for later. The mood in the room shifts then when Nathan glances at her phone on the counter.

            “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard that you called Klaus,” he says slowly. “You know you weren’t supposed to do that.”

            Sighing, Elizabeth turns and walks back to the counter. “Look, he’s my family. I needed to at least hear his voice,” she says defensively. “At least now I know he won’t do anything stupid like tear the city apart.”

            Nathan raises his hands, making it clear that he doesn’t want to fight with her. “I get it. I had to leave my wife in order to set you free,” he admits. “But now that Klaus knows you are no longer with Marcel, he’s gonna be on edge until he sees you again.”

            Not in the mood to continue on with this conversation, Elizabeth shakes her head. “I won’t call him again,” she says.

            As she tries to walk by him, he grasps her arm and forces her to stop. "Look, Liz... I gotta tell you," he says. "Charles won't stop coming for you. He's obsessed with you and his work. I'm not sure why and I'm not sure what he's been up to, but he won't stop. He will do anything to get you back. But I swear to you, he won't get you."

            Her heart skips a beat. The lingering fear of that being a very real situation has been in the back of her mind ever since she woke up in the hotel room. Sniffling, she spots a pair of scissors on the kitchen island. She grasps them in her hand and walks directly past Nathan to the bathroom. For a long while, she stares at her reflection. She never dared to look at herself in the hotel mirrors, but now she cannot help it. Her body has changed since being held captive. Her skin is pale, her cheeks red, her lips pink. Her thick brown hair hangs loosely down to her mid-back, where it tickles the back of her arms. Charles always liked to keep it long and it disgusts her.

            “This isn’t me,” she mumbles.

            Grabbing her hair in a tight fist, she uses the scissors to cut off a good length and it all cascades down to the floor. When she releases her fist, her hair fans out around her shoulders. She cleans up her cut one snip at a time, making it look even and clean. Her loose curls feel lighter now and as she runs her hand through it, she feels better. In a way, she cut her ties to Charles. He always cut her hair for her and never let her take care of it. She’s back in control now. Sighing, she sets the scissors down and brings her hand up to her chin. The eyes that stare back to her are dark and pain, clouding her beauty.

            “Fuck…” She breathes, squeezing her eyes shut.

            Even though she feels like breaking down, she takes a deep breath and leans forward onto the sink. Her home is so close to her, she can feel it, and when she returns, all of her questions will be answered. However, she knows better than to assume the fight will be over just because she escaped. Marcel knows _something_ is on the horizon and whatever that may be, it has him scared. Charles will come looking for her and when that day comes, she will be ready. And as she looks back at herself in the mirror, she no longer sees the beaten-down woman who she has lived as for the past ten years. Instead, she sees her old self and a smile spreads on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alllrrriiiiight. This is where the real plot of the story actually begins. She's free of Charles, free of Marcel... all she has to do is get home and everything will be fine... Right? (*evil laughter in the distance)
> 
> As I'm beginning the writing for the squeal to this story, I am discovering it will be MUCH darker than this one. 
> 
> Also, I apologize for any typos that might still be in the chapters. It's one of the perks of being a writer with dyslexia. :)


	6. Tidal Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When attacked in Josh's apartment, Elizabeth is forced out onto the streets where she finds her way back home.

She awakens with a violent jolt, her screams trapped in her mouth as a bead of sweat rolls down from her forehead.

            Panting heavily, she bolts upwards and looks around the room. She can hardly remember where she is. Her hands are tightly wound into clenched fists, her heart hammering against her chest. The dream felt entirely too real. Is she awake? Is she trapped? She shakes the thought and takes in a long deep breath, counting down from five. Looking down at her fists, she admires the small traces of blood that ooze out from the spaces in between her fingers. Unclenching, she finds cuts in her palms from where her dull nails dug in a little too deeply. Pain; it hardly phases her anymore. She watches as the small cuts close. They heal quickly as if they had never been there, but the blood remains as evidence.

            She swings her legs off the side of the couch, allowing her head to hand as she collects her scattered and distorted thoughts. _It wasn’t real. Charles is not here._ She repeats those words over and over in her head, trying to find something within herself to keep herself grounded. She cannot help but feel like something is lurking in the shadows, waiting to snatch her away again. Is she pathetic for allowing a nightmare to terrify her as much as this one had? She has no idea and she simply cannot help it. The years of trauma… The things she went through… it left a deep scar and not a day goes by where she wishes she could pretend none of it ever happened. She’s damaged.

            On the coffee table in front of her, there’s a small note written on a piece of scrap notebook paper. Beside it is her glass of blood, but she knows better than to drink it now. It has probably gone bad.

 

>   _8:55 PM. Went to the store for some emergency human things (ran out of milk for cereal and toilet paper). I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Call if something goes wrong -Nathan_

            Taking a deep breath in through her nose, Elizabeth sits up straight and glances through the mostly closed windows to her right. The sun is setting now, no longer around to harm her. Allowing herself to latch onto this small drop of happiness, she walks over to the curtains and opens them with vigor. The beautiful blues and pinks in the sky fill her heart, taking away any lingering thoughts she may have had of Charles. For a while, she stands there. In this single moment, she feels peace.

            On the coffee table, her phone begins to buzz with another phone call. She looks over her shoulder, frowning just slightly. She knows exactly who is calling her. Stiffly, she picks it up and makes a note in her mind to wash the dried blood from her hands. Klaus’ name is on the screen again for what feels like the millionth time in the past four days. This would be the fifth time he has called her today. She sighs, recalling just how unhappy Josh was when he found out she called Klaus on the night of her arrival. Of course, she felt bad because she should have known Klaus would tear apart the Bayou to find Josh for answers, but she had to do it and she has to answer this call now. Klaus is growing impatient and if he gets angry, somebody will end up dead.

            “Hello?”

            “ _Why have you been dodging my calls, Elizabeth?_ ” Klaus demands. He’s angry. She can almost hear the scowl in his tone.

            Elizabeth plops back down on the couch, running her hand through her clean hair. It’s no surprise that he is frustrated. “To be fair, I wasn’t supposed to call you in the first place,” she defends lightly. “You terrorized the Bayou looking for Josh. He made me promise not to reach out to you again until it’s safe.”

            “ _I presume it’s safe now?_ ”

            She smiles, resting her head back on the cushions of the couch for only a single moment. “Absolutely not, but I figured you would keep calling me until my phone explodes unless I answered. Or worse yet, you might go on some kind of murder spree.”

            “ _I think a murder spree is perfectly reasonable given the circumstances,_ ” he says defensively. “ _You’ve been hidden from me for four days, Elizabeth. When will you be brought home? You belong with us._ ”

            Sadly, Elizabeth glances out the window again. The colors in the sky have darkened, turning into a clear and beautiful night. “I don’t know, Klaus. Marcel is still tearing the city apart to find me. Josh took away his leverage. That and I’m hiding from the man that held me captive. It’s not safe out there.”

            “ _If you would just tell me where you are… I could protect you,_ ” Klaus mutters, an aggravated edge in his voice.

            From the hallway outside the front door, a subtle creek in the floorboards can be heard. Elizabeth’s ears perk up, tuning into the faint sounds. She can hear breathing, two heartbeats beating steadily. Her grip around the phone tightens. Josh and Aiden are in the Bayou. Davina is with Marcel. Nathan is at the store.

             “ _Are you there, love?_ ” Klaus asks, at a loss for her silence. “ _Elizabeth?_ ”

            Breathing through her mouth, Elizabeth silently stands from the couch. “I have to go,” she says abruptly.

            Shoving her phone into her back pocket, she rushes to the other side of the room and flicks the light switch off, bringing darkness to the apartment. The only light that remains is the light that comes in from the large windows. She can hear somebody standing outside of the door, she can hear their breathing. Moving in a blur, she appears by the windows. The doorknob is turning now. With shaking hands, she unlatches the window and pulls it open as quietly as she can. A cool breeze washes over her skin, igniting the adrenaline in her veins. . She does not have time to grab her coat. Just as she gets one leg out the window, the front door swings open and in comes two men.

            Long before she can get her other leg out the window, one of the men grab her and throw her to the floor. Her body smacks against the cheap hardwood and she slides until her head impacts the coffee table with a thud.

            “We’ve been looking everywhere for you, Lizzie,” one man says tauntingly.

            From where she lies, she looks up at the men. There’s a patch on the arm of their coats. She recognizes the symbol. These men were not sent here by Marcel. These men belong to Charles and if she had to guess, these men are two of his precious creations. Scrambling to her feet, she makes another mad dash for the window. One of the men grabs her ankle and throws her across the room, hard enough to crack the wall. She groans and forces herself onto her hands and knees. She will not be taken back to Charles. Finding focus from within herself, she shakes her head and wipes the blood from her bottom lip.

            “You won’t get very far if you run,” the shorter man says to her as he cracks his knuckles in anticipation. “You’re better off surrendering. Let us take you back home where you belong.”

            Elizabeth scoffs, climbing unsteadily to her feet. “If you think I’m going back, then you’re sorely mistaken,” she says firmly. “I will never go back.”

            She knows what these men are. They are better than what the Augustine Vampires ever was. These men are stronger, better… They’re faster and they will kill her should they get their hands anywhere near her. Most importantly, they’re human which means they can walk into any building and to grab her. She is not safe here. There is only one place left for her to go where none of Charles’ men will dare to go. Moving fast, she seizes the smaller man and sends his face smashing into the corner of the fireplace. He yells in pain, stumbling backward as his nose gushes blood. While she still has the opportunity, she grabs the other man and throws him across the room. From behind her, the small man stabs the back of her right shoulder with a blade and she cries out, hunching over.

            Reaching backward, she extracts the blade and uses it to stab the man in the neck. He looks to her with surprise, choking on his own blood. As he collapses to the floor, the bigger man comes towards her once again and he throws her body down onto the coffee table. It shatters beneath her weight. She rolls, palms digging into the glass. Her shoulder is still throbbing and it occurs to her that the wound is not closing. Instead, it’s on fire and it’s oozing.

            “Werewolf venom and _a lot_ of it. Charles whipped up a special batch just for you,” the man explains. “You’ll be dead within a few hours.”

            “Son of a bitch,” she mutters.

            Before she falls ill from the stab wound, she gets to her feet and turns to face the man once again. He possesses two blades, his hands holding them in tightly wound fists. From the remains of the coffee table, she picks up a piece of the broken leg and holds it up defensively. She has a number of options here. She could try for the window again, but she has better chances of getting stabbed in the head.

            “How did you find me?” She asks, trying to buy herself enough time to think. By now, she is the master of stalling.

            The man smiles, his eyes roaming over her body hungrily. “Did you really think Charles would let you leave without making sure you could be found?”

            _The scar on her palm_. Vampires do not get scars, she should have known. She’s an idiot. Ignoring her furious thoughts, she charges forward and drops down to her knees to slide in between the man’s legs. She jumps up behind him and leaps upwards, legs wrapping around his waist. With her leverage, she braces the broken leg of the coffee table against his neck. She pulls backward with all of the strength she has, strangling her attacker. The man thrashes and tries to shake her off, only managing to do so when the leg snaps in half from the force of her pulling. Coughing, the man falls with her and he plunges his blade down, piercing her abdomen. Yelling loudly in her pain, she kicks at him, knocking him backward.

            “I’m better than you in every way, sweetheart,” the man taunts. “I’m stronger and faster. Give up.”

            Breathing in sharply through her clenched teeth, Elizabeth pulls the blade from her beaten body and is quick to throw it at the man’s head. He collapses to the ground. Dead.

            “Faster my ass…” She breathes heavily, eyes darting around the room.

            Her thigh is bleeding. He must have cut her during the fall. Cursing, she unsteadily gets to her feet and looks around Josh’s trashed apartment. She has to get out of here before more show up. Stumbling, she climbs out of the window and lowers herself down to the fire escape. The New Orleans nightlife is crawling on the sidewalks, music playing on every street corner. She has no idea where she is. For all she knows, she on the completely wrong side of town. With three wounds that are contaminated with highly concentrated werewolf venom, she will not last long. She has no more than a couple of hours.

            As soon as her feet meet the sidewalk, she stumbles down a dark alleyway where she finds broken glass from a bottle. She picks a piece up and holds her hand in the moonlight, pressing the glass to the meat of her thumb. She whimpers as she cuts open the scar, pressing the glass further and further down. She never thought to question the scar. She had always been too preoccupied with the torture to notice. Cursing, she throws the glass to the ground before moving to pull out a small piece of metal from within her hand. It blinks a dull blue and she stares at it, angry.

            Pushing forward, she comes out on the street and discreetly slips the device into a garbage can. With luck, the trash will be taken out by morning and Charles’ men will be led to the dump. People stare at her as she walks, worried for her as she is covered in blood. She should get off the streets. Changing her direction, she cuts in between two buildings and comes out on the back-roads. Only druggies and lowlife vampires hang back here, she will be safe.

            Trudging forward with her right leg dragging slightly behind, she passes by a shop with mannequins hanging out just outside the store front. She walks up to one and snatches the charcoal gray zip-up hoodie that one had been wearing. Looking over her shoulder, she slips her arms into it and zips it up. At least now she’ll appear to be less of wreck.

            “You look like you could use some help,” a man assesses bravely.

            Snapping back around, Elizabeth looks to the man who speaks to her. He stands no more than six inches above her and he wears a slimy smile, his eyes turning color. He is not human.

            “I need to get to the French Quarter,” she says simply.

This man does not realize who she is and he would have to have a few more brain cells to piece together who she is running from. He is not a threat. 

            “The French Quarter, eh? You’d be stupid to go there, you know,” the man warns. “The Mad Hybrid… You know, Klaus. He’s there.”

            “Coincidentally, that’s just the man I’m looking for,” Elizabeth sighs.

            “Now why would you go looking for Klaus? He’ll kill you.”

            Elizabeth laughs anxiously. “I doubt that.”

            “And what makes you so sure?”

            Growing tired of this man’s games, Elizabeth looks at him directly in the eyes. “Maybe you’ve heard of me. My name is Elizabeth Walker. I ran with the Original family; they are my brothers and sisters. If you tell anyone about my existence, I will make sure Klaus himself tracks you down. Are we clear?”

            The man takes two steps backward, his eyes wide. “E-Elizabeth Walker? You’re supposed to be dead. You’re a legend around here. Y-You’re a l-legend to all of us. How are you alive?”

            “The Abattoir,” Elizabeth snaps. She is growing weaker by the minute. “ _Where is it?_ ”

            “Please forgive me,” he says, pointing a shaking finger down west.

            Elizabeth says nothing more to the man and she shoves forward, pushing through the fire that rages on inside of her body. If Charles thought he could scare her into coming back with the threat of werewolf venom, he thought wrong. All she has to do now is get to the Abattoir before the dementia settles in and it’s too late. Traveling in the darkness of the shadows, she keeps herself hidden and takes every breath as if it could be her last; she has grown to really despise Charles’ concentrated venom. Her phone buzzes in her back pocket with a call. She pulls it out and looks at the contact name, frowning. It’s Nathan. _Shit._

            “ _Liz, what the hell happened? Where are you?_ ” Nathan asks, his voice laced with nothing by stress and worry.

            Gasping for air, Elizabeth falters to the side and grips the side of a brick building to keep her balance as she continues her trek. “Charles sent men. He had a tracking device in my hand… I-I was stupid. I didn’t realize he did that,” she explains. “I killed them both, but it’s not safe for you there. He will send more guys after me and he won’t stop until I’m in his custody again.”

            “ _I figured as much, but you didn’t answer my question,_ ” Nathan says wearily. “ _Where the hell are you? It’s dangerous out there._ ”

            In her haze, she slowly begins to realize she can hear every heartbeat on the streets. Her mouth waters with the craving and her vision narrows… all she can think about is blood. “You know better than anyone that Charles likes to screw around with werewolf venom. He made a high concentrated strain… I got a lot of it in my system. I’m on my way to the compound. I’ll be dead within the hour without Klaus’ blood. I’ll let you know when I’m safe.”

            Unable to carry on with the conversation, she hangs up and shoves her phone into her back pocket. _Blood…_ Groaning, she takes a rounded left and comes out onto a painfully familiar street. Panting, she walks faster until she is standing at the entrance of the Abattoir. She somehow made it. Unsteadily, she slips inside through the front gate and looks around in awe. This place has changed significantly since she has been here last. It’s clean and holds many new paintings that she will have to take the time to look at later. It is well into the night now and most everyone should be asleep, but her mind is only fixated on one man in particular.

            Climbing the stairs, she grips the railing and tries to remain as silent as possible. She has no idea who lives here anymore, it could be any number of unknown people. At the top of the stairs, she navigates through the hallways, looking for anything that rings with familiarity. Klaus could be anywhere, but she’s relying on the time of night. Pausing, she stops to listen to her surroundings. She hears multiple heartbeats, all of which are slow and steady except for one. With the back of her hand, she wipes the drenching sweat from her forehead. Klaus is in his bedroom. As she moves forward, she catches her reflection in a mirror. Her skin is sickly pale and her body is coated in blood and sweat. She looks awful. It reminds her of her days in her cell.

            At the end of the darkened hallway, she peers into the room and spots Klaus sitting at his desk. He’s writing in a journal and he’s focused, unbeknownst to who stands behind him. With what little energy she has left, she props her body against the doorframe. It creaks underneath her added weight. Klaus pauses his writing, but he does turn around.

            “Elijah, may I suggest feeding? Your heartbeat sounds absolutely dreadful,” he comments.

            Elizabeth smiles. She missed his attitude. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she says. Her voice is hoarse and weak. “Concentrated werewolf venom does a number on a vampire.”

            Klaus turns around in his chair, surprised to hear the voice of a woman. He stares at Elizabeth for no more than three seconds before rushing to her side just in time to catch her as she falls. Dragging her towards the edge of his bed, he bites his wrist and holds it against her flushed lips, allowing her to feed.

            “Elizabeth…” he breathes. “What happened to you?”

            He waits patiently for her to stop feeding, stroking her hair gently. Soon, she draws back and takes a deep breath as his blood flows through her. It will take some time before she feels right, but death is no longer an impending threat. She’s healing.

“I was attacked… the man that held me captive… he sent people after me,” she explains tiredly. “Charles basically made a human hybrid... They’re dangerous.”

            Klaus watches her as she peels off the hoodie she stole. Her clothes are soaked through with blood, completely destroyed. She then tries to stand, narrowly collapsing again as she does. Her body is exhausted and her cravings for blood are intense. Klaus stands to support her, gripping her forearm and waist to keep her steady.

            “You found your way here, then?” He asks quietly as if he is afraid to speak too loudly around her.

            “It was either that or die from the venom,” she laughs anxiously. “I couldn’t stay at the apartment. More would have shown up. I ran for it.”

            “Always the fighter,” he muses in a hushed voice.

            Wordlessly, Klaus takes her out to the hallway where they walk to another bedroom door that has been closed, up until recently, for eight years. Elizabeth stares at it, almost afraid to go in. It has been so long… she’s not sure it’s real. Hesitantly, she rests her hand on the doorknob and she takes a moment to recollect her thoughts before pushing the door open. Inside, she is surprised to see that everything is just as she had left it. Her books are still on her desk, her dumb cactus still lives on the window sill, and her favorite quilt still resides on the end of her bed.

            “Rebekah came in to tidy up yesterday,” Klaus explains admirably. “There was quite a bit of dust to clean.”

            Elizabeth smiles just slightly and with ease, she pulls away from Klaus’ secure hold to wander into her room alone. “I missed it here.”

            “Nobody has occupied this room in your absence. Elijah and I took several precautions to ensure that,” Klaus says. “If you wish to clean up, I will find a fresh pair of clothes for you. I believe Rebekah and a friend of ours went shopping yesterday.”

            Nodding, Elizabeth turns away and walks to the door beside her closet. The bathroom, much like her bedroom, has not changed much. She sniffles as she turns the shower on and she tries hard to fight back her tears. She absolutely hates herself for crying so much lately, but she has so many emotions pressing on her and she has no idea how else she should react. She fought so hard to come home and she’s finally here; it feels like a dream. Dropping her bloody clothes to the floor, she climbs into the shower and she allows the warm water to fall on her.

            When the door closes behind her, she feels as if the walls inside of her mind are cracking. Everything hurts, right down to her fingertips. So much has changed, yet nothing has changed at all. Klaus is the same as she remembers; blonde, blue-eyed, and perfect. Her bedroom, although featuring some new books as clothes, is the same. Rushing to the shower, she yanks the curtain back and is quick to turn on the water. She does not want Klaus to hear her. Whimpering, she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to keep herself held together for a little while longer. She fought so hard to come home again and now that she’s finally here, now that she’s back with her family, it feels like a dream. Will she wake up tomorrow and find that she never left her cell? She curses, wiping her tears with her shaking hands.

            Is she wrong to feel this way? Of course not. She knows she went through a serious trauma and she has every right to feel completely lost and broken. Nevertheless, she hates herself for crying so much. Deep down, she wishes she could be stronger. Behind all of the walls she has put up to protect herself, she wishes she could drop everything that happened and move on with her life. Ripping the blood-soaked clothes from her body, she throws everything to the floor and all but stumbles into the shower. The warm water falls down on her, wrapping her body in a blanket of comfort.

            For what feels like an hour, she scrubs and claws at her skin until she feels clean and free of the things that were done to her. The water at her feet that had once been brick red has now turned clear and she no longer smells of blood but of rose petals and vanilla. Her old familiar scent, the very scent that she was deprived of. Stepping out, she grabs for one of the large towels from the wall rack and wraps it around her exhausted body. She is worn out and wants nothing more than to crawl into her bed, but the terrors from what happened in Josh’s apartment are still so fresh in her mind. How can she be sure she’ll be safe here? It’s a dumb thought. She knows she is safe. It makes her smile to think that this is one of the few benefits of Klaus’ reputation.

            On the counter is a set of pajamas from, presumably, Klaus. She smiles at them and runs her fingers of the fabric, having not worn pajamas for ten, nearly eleven, long years. A little too excitedly, she pulls on her panties and slides the pale blue plaid sweatpants up her legs. Next, she pulls the white long-sleeved shirt over her head and her torso. She had forgotten what it was like to wear comfortable clothes, it feels almost comical to do so now. Pulling her dried hair back, she exits the bathroom and is, to the say the least, surprised to see Klaus sitting on the edge of her bed with a blood bag in hand.

            “You look much more alive now,” Klaus comments with a soft smile. His eyes roam over her body, but they do not stray from her face for too long. He has missed looking at her.

            Elizabeth walks over to him and climbs onto her bed, resting against her fluffy pillows. “I feel alive,” she jokes quietly. “Thank you for helping me.”

            “You don’t need to thank me. I would never let you die,” Klaus says softly. He then offers her the blood bag and she takes it hungrily. “Tomorrow we will talk. For now, I think it would be best for you to get some rest. You’re exhausted.”

            Elizabeth looks wearily to the window, fear prickling at her spine. “Would you believe me if I said I’m terrified of sleeping?”

            Klaus frowns and reaches out to lightly touch the side of her face. “Nightmares?”

            “When I was a prisoner, I would be lucky to get more than a couple of hours of sleep. It was his way of having fun. He would wake me up in the middle of the night to hurt me… Every time I fall asleep, I see his face,” she explains. “He is always there. The trauma… It’s messing with my mind.”

            Saddened to hear how badly hurt she still remains, Klaus shifts around until he has one leg tucked under the other. He stares at her, searching through her eyes. There will never be enough words in the universe to express how much he has missed her kind eyes. “He will not lay a finger on you again,” he says sincerely. “I will make sure of that.”

            Elizabeth shakes her head, moving her gaze down to her lap. “Do not make promises you cannot keep, Niklaus.”

            Edging closer, Klaus angles her beautiful face upwards again and he waits until she meets his eyes once again. “Then I will start small,” he sighs. “I promise to watch over you tonight. You will not suffer from a nightmare so long as I’m here with you.”

            Elizabeth draws her eyebrows in together, at a loss for words. Klaus smiles softly and gets up to move to the other side of her bed. She is about to ask what he is doing, but he answers that question by drawing the blanket back and crawling underneath. Carefully, he pulls her close until her head is resting on his chest.

            “You’re as stiff as a board, Elizabeth,” Klaus chuckles quietly. “Allow yourself to relax. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

            Trying to will herself to be calm, Elizabeth squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. With time, she allows herself to let her guard down. However, by doing so, she also allows in a wall of emotions that wash over her like a tidal wave. Klaus says nothing as she cries, he only holds her close and keeps a hand on the back of her head. He can only imagine the torture she went through and he would never dare ask her to be strong in the face of her trauma. She needs time to adjust and as she clutches onto Klaus’ body, she is reminded of a familiar feeling that had been lost to her long ago. Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys are enjoying this so far! This story means a lot to me, especially because The Originals came into my life during a time in which I needed it (And TVD, but mostly The Originals). I was absolutely destroyed by the final season of TO, so I'm trying to do the characters right by this story and it's coming sequel. I spent a lot of time making sure everyone is in character and I am excited to get the rest of the story out :)


	7. Daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally back home, Elizabeth has breakfast with her family and does what she can to come to terms with the trauma that has taken control of her life.

In her exhausted daze from the night before, she had not paid much attention to the open curtains.

            Jolting awake, Elizabeth cries out as her flesh begins to burn under the morning sunlight. Tearing herself away from the iron hold of a hybrid, she slams into the wall across the room where the sunlight does not touch. Books from the nearby bookshelf fall to the floor, scattering and sliding all over the room. Klaus is quick to rush to the windows, drawing all of the curtains shut in a blur of movement. Now protected, Elizabeth slides down to the floor as she breathes heavily with fear. Her skin stings as it heals and she acknowledges how familiar this feels. Back in Charles’ care, that was one of his favorite ways to wake her up. He always enjoyed watching to see how she would protect herself.

            “I take it you no longer have your daylight ring?” Klaus asks, tiredness still finely woven into his groggy voice.

            Once free of burns and singed skin, Elizabeth uneasily stands and shows her bare hands to the hybrid. “It was taken away from me the day I was captured,” she sighs sadly. She loved her ring. “He most likely destroyed it or he kept it to study the magic properties. I have no idea.”

            Klaus sighs and runs his hands over his face, trying to wake himself up. “I will go track down Elijah, then. He is bound to have one stored somewhere… or possibly Freya.”

            Elizabeth furrows her eyebrows. “Freya?”

            Dropping his hands, Klaus looks to the vampire who still stands in the corner of her room. It still feels entirely too surreal to be looking at her after all the time that has passed. “You have missed quite a lot,” he muses softly. “Freya has become a vital part of this family and she prides herself on being rather powerful. She’s happily married now. She looks forward to officially meeting you.”

            Stiffly, Elizabeth wraps her arms around herself and tries to calm herself. She’s back home now and with that, there will be a plethora of information she will need to catch up on. She seriously doubts the Mikaelsons have been kicking back, drinking Piña Coladas, while she was away. For the first time in nearly eleven years, she feels completely rested, but she cannot say the same about Klaus who yawns before her. He looks exhausted and borderline asleep where he stands. It is strange to see someone so powerful fall victim to something many believe that vampires do not need.

            “Did you not sleep last night?” She asks hesitantly. If she counted, she could list all of the times she has seen him like this on one hand. This is an entirely rare sight.

            Klaus blinks a couple of times as if to try and wake himself up, but it does not disguise what Elizabeth sees. “I promised I would watch over you, did I not?” He asks. “I was in your head all night fighting off your nightmares.”

            Frowning, Elizabeth walks over to him and is careful when she places a hand on his arm. “It’s still early if you want to get some sleep,” she offers, gesturing to her bed. “The sun only just came up.”

            “There are more important matters on the agenda that I need to handle. Like destroying the man that took you from us,” Klaus says in heated disagreement.

            Moving her hands to her hips, she cannot help but smile. She missed this man every single day she was away and now he stands before her. This must all be a dream. “You get homicidal when you haven’t rested. Wasn’t it you that once told me even the biggest and baddest vampires need rest? Something about days blurring together and energy conservation?”

            “That I suppose it would do Charles Richardson and Marcel Gerard good to stay indoors today,” Klaus threatens with a particular bite in his voice that has Elizabeth frowning.

            “Come sit with me, at least,” she tries and when Klaus rolls his blue eyes, she sighs tiredly. “It’s _early_ , Niklaus. The world will not stop turning if you stay in bed a little while longer.”

            In every mood except for the mood to keep arguing, Klaus begrudgingly walks back to the warn bed where he climbs back into the same spot he had been in for the entirety of the night. Elizabeth follows closely behind him, but she instead sits in front of him with her legs crisscrossed. They remain silent for a long while, both dancing around the questions they want to so desperately ask each other. After all of the time they have spent together, it seems silly to be so hesitant now. Playing with her fingers, Elizabeth meets Klaus’ unwavering gaze.

            “What happened?” She asks and she does not need to explain her question further. He understands.

            “Nobody knew what happened to you. When you told me you needed some air, I expected you to come back… You were long gone by the time I went looking for you,” he explains slowly and he feels as if he is tearing open old wounds that never finished closing in the first place. “The people who took you were smart about it. They left a note behind to make it seem like you had left us because you felt trapped, threatened by me…”

            Her heart drops into her stomach. She had always wondered why they never came looking for her and now she knows. Charles hid it all behind a lie. “Klaus, I never wrote a letter,” she says as she grabs one of his hands. “It was all a lie. I could never leave like that. You guys are my family. _You_ are my family.”

            Klaus looks down at their hands and it’s almost as if his entire mood shifts in a single second. Robotically, he pulls his hand away and swings his legs off the side of the warm bed. He seems colder now, like a wall has been put up. “I’m going to go clean up,” he announces. “You should do this same.”

            And long before she can say anything, he is gone.

            She stands outside of the dining room, her heart hammering against her chest with nerves. She has only been able to dream of this moment for so long and now that it’s finally here, she has absolutely no idea what to do with herself. The rest of her family is only a few steps away, only a wall keeps them separated now. Anxiously, she closes her eyes and counts down from five; her old method for survival. When she opens them again, she bravely takes the next step forward and enters the room where the chatter and laughter come to an immediate and deafening halt. They all stare at her, mid drink and mid serving. Nobody knows what to say. Hell, she barely knows what to think let alone say.

            “Elizabeth…” Elijah says slowly and quietly almost as if he is struggling to believe what he is seeing is real.

            Klaus stands from his seat at the end of the table and he walks over to her, gently guiding her towards it where many breakfast items are scattered about. “She fought her way to us last night. I thought it best to wait until morning for the reunion.”

            Rebekah sets her glass of orange juice down and rises from the table, walking around to pull Elizabeth into her strong arms. “We have missed you so much, Liz. I'm glad you're alive and safe. I was so worried you had died.”

            Elizabeth hugs the youngest Original, trying to remember what it was like to be in this place after years of torture. Her heart aches and as Rebekah steps away, she sees that she has started to cry. Klaus watches uncomfortably as if something is nagging at him, but he doesn’t dare to say anything. Next, it is Elijah who rises from his seat. He practically runs to her, capturing her into his warm embrace. His hug is different and feels secure, like he’s trying to silently express something to her.

            “I am so glad you have returned to us, Elizabeth. Your face was missed around here. We were so worried,” Elijah says and it almost sounds like an apology. “We should have tried harder to find you. We should have known something was wrong.”

            Elizabeth draws back and she grabs for one of Elijah's hands, happiness in her tearful brown eyes. “I don’t blame any of you, Elijah. Charles hid it behind a lie. I'm home now. That's all that matters.”

            Elijah smiles, something that is not seen entirely too often. “We may not share blood, but you have always been my little sister. You are apart of our family,” he says wholeheartedly. “We will find them. We will make them pay for the horrors they caused you. You have my word.”

            Unable to say anything, she nods. She has given plenty of thought to what she would do if she ever got her hands around Charles’ neck, but now that she has the upper hand and the backing of her family… it feels fake. Ten long years have been leading her to this very moment.

            “Come on, now. Have a seat,” Klaus urges. “You must be starving.”

            She is all but forced to take her old place at the table, right by Klaus. Rebekah passes her a warm plate of food followed by a glass of blood. She accepts both gratefully, laughing just slightly. It has been entirely too long since she has had a real and normal breakfast.

            “I remember our last meal together,” Elizabeth says warmly. “It was the Christmas Eve dinner. That was the last time I had a decent meal.”

            Rebekah reaches out and gently rests her hand on Elizabeth’s tense shoulder, squeezing just slightly to convey some form of comfort. “We will have as many family meals as possible, then. We have nearly eleven years to make up for.”

            Beaming ever so slightly, Elizabeth looks down at her plate and is hit with an abrupt sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. Everything around her has changed. Absolutely nothing will be the same now. No matter how much they may try, their lives will never go back to how it was. She has changed; her family has changed. The faces she has lived with for half a millennium have new stories to tell and they have suffered hardships in her absence. This is the start of a new chapter in her life and she can see nothing but war is being written into the pages. Uneasily, she picks up her fork and tries to swallow past the uncomfortable knot in her throat. Difficulties lie ahead and although it would be much easier to run, she will be strong for her family. She has to be.

            “Now as you all know, there are certain matters at hand that need to be dealt with,” Klaus says after the long, deafening pause.

            Rebekah rolls her eyes as she peels apart a bread roll. “Not now, Nik,” she complains. “This is Elizabeth’s first meal with us. Let her enjoy it.”

            “Yes, and it will be her last if we do not put an end to those who are coming for her,” he argues darkly. “Unless you’d rather give our enemies time to prepare for an attack?”

            Elizabeth sets her fork down slowly, realizing that the time to eat has come and gone. It was only a matter of time before Klaus would want to plan for attack. And she almost laughs, knowing what she said earlier was correct… Klaus does get homicidal when he chooses not to sleep.

            “First order of business,” Klaus carries on when nobody in the room objects, “Elizabeth’s daylight ring was taken from her. She will need a new one. Elijah, would you happen to have one you can spare or should I go rummaging through Freya’s things?”

            Elijah leans back in his chair, folding his hands together atop the table. “I already had a new one made for her, brother.”

            “Good,” Klaus says. “Go fetch it, then.”

            A little put off by his brother’s curt attitude, Elijah stands from the table and walks off to some unknown room in the Abattoir. Elizabeth remains in her place silently, unsure of where to look or of what to say. It would not be a lie to say that she feels oddly out of place and being the center of all of the attention is messing with her head.

            “Nik, the least you can do is give her a day to adjust,” Rebekah tries, a touch of sadness in her voice. “We only just got her back and you want to plan for war.”

            Without another word on the topic, Klaus pushes away from the table and walks promptly out of the room with a scowl on his face. Elizabeth watches after him, unsure of how his mood could have shifted so drastically from last night. She wants to ask him, but she also knows better than to do such a thing. Klaus will talk to her when he is ready and not a second before. That is how it had always been and that’s how it will always be.

            “He just wants to keep you safe now that we have you,” Rebekah explains. “Losing you… it was hard on all us, but it was the hardest on Nik. He changed. I barely recognized him during the first year. Hope was the only thing that kept him grounded.”

            Elizabeth nods and reaches for her glass of blood, feeling the warmth against her palm; this blood did not come from a bag. “I lost track of time after the second year. It was hard to keep it all straight in my head when I would be held in a dark cell for days at a time. Sometimes, he would put me in an induced coma for weeks to study me. One day, I was in his lab and caught sight of the date,” she recalls bitterly and she stares off in the distance as she speaks, not really looking at anything in particular. “Six years had gone by. I had been a prisoner for eight years already. I remember how horrified I felt... All I could think about was you guys. I had hoped that maybe one day you would know something was wrong… but at that point, I had already lost so much hope. By the tenth year, I was lost.”

            The revelation does not sit well with Rebekah. In fact, it makes her sick to her stomach. “Ten years is nothing for us, but I cannot imagine how long it must have felt for you. It felt dreadfully long just wondering where you had gone, but it must have been horrifying for you,” she says wearily. “I should have looked harder for you. You were so close and I missed it every time. That Nathan boy did right by setting you free. I will have to thank him.”

            Elizabeth closes her eyes for a brief moment, recalling her darkest times. “I started to get used to it after a while. I was being tortured every day. Starved, neglected… beaten. I figured it couldn’t get any worse than it already was. I had hoped Charles would run out of ideas, but every week was something new,” she says. “I don’t blame you for not finding me. I don’t blame any of you for what happened either. If anything, I should have tried harder to escape. I got so close when I tried, but I never made it outside.”

            Rebekah seems to be at a complete loss for words. Nobody really knows what to say in a situation as painful as this one. How many times can someone say they feel sorry or that they wish they could have done more before it grows to be old and meaningless? She knows they all feel awful. She knows they tried their hardest to find her before giving up. There’s nothing more to be said about it. All they can do now is move on and focus on what’s coming up ahead. Something dark is coming for them, she can feel it now that her head is clear and she is back where she belongs and she would bet it has everything to do with Charles. Wherever Marcel is now, she will have to reach out to him and get ahead of this. She will not have her family torn apart by unforeseen enemies. 

            “On the bright side, there are still a few people you have yet to officially meet,” Rebekah says cheerfully. “You were always so busy trying to keep the peace that you never met those who were helping us along the way. Camille, our dear sister Freya… They want to meet the famous Elizabeth Walker.”

            Elizabeth furrows her eyebrows. This has been a reoccurring theme and she cannot wrap her head around it. “What is with that?” She asks. “What does everyone here know my name? Why am I so famous again? Josh said there’s even a festival in my name now.”

            Rebekah opens her mouth to speak, but fails to come up with anything remotely intelligent to say. “Elizabeth… you have been with us for five-hundred years. You…” She pauses, trying to find the right words to say. “You were the only person on earth who could get close to Nik. We all know you were are known for that and you must know how ruthless you were when something needed to be done. When you were around, or even as a ghost when we had to disappear to hide from our father, you were feared for all of the right reasons, unlike the rest of us. Kindness, gracefulness, perseverance,” she explains. “However, when you disappeared, you became known for another reason. We all fell apart within weeks; turning against each other and fighting all while trying to protect Hope. Nik became a monster. Your name is so famous here because you were the only woman to successfully tame the 'Mad Hybrid' and when you left, you broke him. You stole his crown.”

            “Digging up history, I see?” Elijah says as he walks back into the room. In his hand, he carries a small black box. “Yes, it is true. You are the woman who tore Niklaus Mikaelson apart. People celebrate you in the streets now every December. The woman of New Orleans sees you as a hero and a role model. Your disappearance triggered a chain reaction. Some even go as far as to call you the queen of New Orleans. It is quite amusing, actually. I do wonder what they will do when they realize you have returned.”

            Elizabeth folds her hands together. She has no idea how she should feel towards this. She never intended to push Klaus over the edge; she had only spent the majority of her life trying to keep him in line. No matter how gruesome it became, she always cleaned up after his messes and she did what she could to bring peace to those he terrorized. It was never perfect, he still did terrible things and made his name feared, but it hurts her to know that he became a monster in the wake of her disappearance. She was there when New Orleans burned, she was there when he was hellbent on breaking the curse. She has seen it all and judging by how they speak to her now, the past ten years have been nothing short of dreadful.

            “This ring is very old. It’s from the Victorian era,” Elijah says as he opens the ring box and slides it over to her. “I felt that you would like this one best. We could always have Freya make another to your liking.”

            Elizabeth takes the ring from the box and holds it up, admiring its beauty. The Lapis is oval-shaped, no bigger than a pea, and the beautiful band is carefully crafted into delicate curves where they meet to hold the stone. She stares at it with a smile on her lips. Although she had loved her old one, this one will do just fine. 

            “It’s perfect, Elijah,” she says warmly. Extracting it from the box, she slides the ring onto her right middle finger. “Thank you.”

            “Where has Nik wandered off to, Elijah?” Rebekah asks. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to leave him alone for too long.”

            “Afraid I may do something hasty, sister?” Klaus asks as he walks through the opposite entrance. Following closely beside him is a young girl who appears to have just woken up. She rubs her eyes tiredly as she yawns, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.

            With curious eyes, Elizabeth stares at the girl and she racks through all of the faces in her mind to try and find the name that belongs to this girl. Elijah stands from his chair and pulls the chair beside him away from the table so the girl can sit and Klaus pats her head as he passes by to return to his own seat at the head of the table. Rebekah, who had already been moving, passes a plate of warm food over to rest in front of her. The young girl then looks to Elizabeth, a beautiful smile appearing on her face. As she stares back, it finally clicks in her head. The blue eyes she possesses, her pale skin… her dark hair. Hope.

            “Eat your breakfast, darling,” Klaus tells his daughter. “Your mum will be here soon to take you to the Bayou.”

            All of the eyes in the room are on Elizabeth now. Questions are burning on her tongue, but her mouth seems to be fused shut. Hope had been nearly two years old when she last saw her. She must be thirteen now and she already seems so grown. She’s stunning.

            “She has grown quite a bit, hasn’t she?” Klaus asks with a soft smile on his lips. “She has become her own person now. A strong one too, might I add. I am quite proud of her.”

            Although she would like to, she simply cannot tear her eyes away from Hope. She remembers perfectly the day she was born and she remembers the exact moment Klaus first held her in his arms. The love he felt for his daughter and the love she felt for her as well as strong and she had always wondered about Hope in her absence. She could never imagine she could grow up to be so beautiful and strong.

            “Dad, I’m right here,” Hope complains. “I can talk for myself.”

Klaus laughs and passes her a glass of orange juice. “Yes, well… I’m sure you’ve noticed the woman in the room,” he says. “Do you know who she is?”

            Hope looks back over to Elizabeth and she squints her eyes. “That’s… Oh! That’s Aunt Lizzie!”

            At the sound of the name, she is instantly back in her cell. Dark images and memories flood into her mind, clouding every thought that she has. Recoiling violently, Elizabeth takes a sharp breath inward and scoots her chair back in a blur, making the glasses and silverware on the table shake. Her reaction embarrasses her as it seems so uncalled for, but it’s deeply embedded into her mind to hate that name and to fear it. The three Originals in the room stare at her with concern, but it is Rebekah who first puts the pieces together.

            “Hope, let’s try calling Auntie Lizzie a different name, okay?” She tries slowly. “Let’s call her Elizabeth or maybe Liz.”

            Hope stares at Rebekah and nods her head, munching on a grape. “Right, sorry,” she apologizes. There is something about the way she stares at Elizabeth that would suggest that she knows more than what she is letting on. This is the woman that disappeared, the woman her father talked so much about… the very same woman who had been captured by an evil man. “Elizabeth is a beautiful name.”

            “Thank you,” Elizabeth says in a kind tone. She tries to bury her previous reaction in her mind, humiliated that it happened in the first place. She should have better control than this. “She’s wonderful, Klaus. She’s beautiful.”

            Before anything can be said or asked of her, Elizabeth leaves the table and walks promptly out of the dining room. She needs to get away from what happened; she’s upset with herself. Charles should not have this much power over her. It’s just a stupid name, why should she hate to hear it? In her bedroom, she kicks the door closed and storms to her shut curtains. Drawing them back, she allows the sunlight to pour in through the window and over his skin. The feeling of the summer sun is warm and it sends a happiness through her body that has not been felt for a long while now. A weight lifts from her shoulders.

            “How does it feel?” Klaus asks from behind.

            Elizabeth turns to find the hybrid leaning against her door frame, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m sorry for how I acted down there. Hope has grown so much. I never would have recognized her if she didn’t have your eyes and Hayley's smile.”

            “You don’t need to apologize to me, Elizabeth,” Klaus replies. “You went through something horrific. Nobody blames you.”

            “ _I_ blame me, Klaus,” Elizabeth argues back and she’s not sure where the anger is coming from. “I should be stronger than this, I am five-hundred years old for crying out loud, but the smallest things set me off and I’m left wondering why I’m so weak.”

            Klaus’ heart sinks low and he steps into the room, not entirely sure of what he should say. He knows nothing will truly make her feel better. “You mustn’t be so hard on yourself. You need time, love.”

            “No,” she snaps. “What I _need_ is to kill everyone who harmed me. I will find Charles and when I do, I will rip his heart out. I will take everything away from him just as he did to me. I will make him suffer for hurting me and for hurting those he still holds in his cells.”

            Klaus of all people understands her thirst for revenge, but it does not sound natural coming from Elizabeth’s mouth. Her time away has changed her, just as it changed him, and as he reaches out to rest a hand on her neck, thumb skimming her jawline, he can see the true pain and anger in her eyes.

            “Then we’ll kill them all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being so slow with getting these chapters out. I've been out of town for the past two weeks. More chapters to come soon!
> 
> As always, I apologize for missed typos. Being a writer with dyslexia is interesting. 
> 
> ELIZABETH'S RING: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XCCVBR6/?coliid=ICR43GI5EVTK3&colid=3EZQMIIO9ZR94&th=1


	8. Railways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Going through the motions of her trauma, Elizabeth is shown by Rebekah what was written in the letter that masked her disappearance. Later, Marcel reveals he has information that he is willing to share under one condition: Elizabeth has to go with him.

**1524**

_“Klaus, please listen to me,” she begs._

_Refusing to say calm, Klaus throws his cup against the wall. The shards of thick glass dance on the hardwood floor, blood spilling in between the cracks of the cracked marble. “I never wanted this life for you. You deserved so much more than to be soiled by the plague that I am, Elizabeth,” he berets. “You are too close to me and if you get any closer, you will surely wind up dead. I will not have that.”_

_Frustrated, Elizabeth takes two steps forward and with a violent force, she shoves him as hard as she can. He stumbles backward and hits the nearby wall hard enough to send a picture frame tumbling to the floor. It shatters on impact. Acting only on her anger, she grabs Klaus by the collar of his dress shirt and she forces him to meet her white-hot gaze._

_“You may not have wanted this life for me, but I knew what I was getting into the second I laid eyes on you,” she yells, tears slipping down her red cheeks. Behind her, her sister lies lifeless; her heart torn out by the man in front of her. A powerful and evil witch. Dead. “I knew I was going to die if I stayed by your side, but I never walked away. I didn’t have the strength to. I stayed knowing that one day I would die. And if I should die again because I chose to stay, then so be it. I have lived a good life.”_

_Something changes within Klaus then and as if it had never been there, his anger fades away. He stares down at Elizabeth’s tearful eyes and grasps a hold of her arms, holding her in the place. His hands are still covered in her sister’s blood, smearing onto her skin. “Then, perhaps, it is due time for me to give you the strength to walk away,” he suggests in a broken voice._

_Knowing exactly what he is referring to, Elizabeth’s eyes widen with fear. She desperately pushes against his chest, trying to break free of his impossibly stronghold. “No! Please, Klaus… I’m begging you!” She screams. “Please, don’t do this to me… Don’t do this!”_

_She pounds her fists against his chest, sobbing loudly, doing whatever she can to break away. This cannot happen… this cannot happen to her. She will not let it. Klaus takes each hit with ease, hardly phased by the impact. For being so young in the shadow of his age, she is quite strong. He has always admired that about her. Through each punch, tug, and scratch, he keeps his grip firm._

_“A-After everything… you cannot do this! Please!” She sobs._

_Tears begin to fall from Klaus’ eyes, leaving trails on his cheeks. A monster as rare as he still has emotions and he is exposing them to her now. She cannot run, she is trapped in his hold, and it would be so easy to set her free. Seeing her die once was enough for him. He got to her too late and he has to do this now to prevent it from ever happening again. He cannot bear to see the light in her eyes fade out again._

_“I have no choice, Elizabeth,” he whispers. “I’m poison. I have already murdered your sister… It’s safer for you if you never feel anything for me ever again.”_

_Thrashing in his hold now, Elizabeth sobs and screams to be set free. She will not let him make her forget. All she has left is her memories. “Niklaus, please. You cannot do this to me. You’re all I have…” she begs, choking on her tears. “P-Please. You’re all I have left, I have no one.” She can hardly breathe in her corset._

_Refusing to bend, Klaus grabs her chin and forces her to look into his deeply hurt eyes. He has to do this. This is the only way to keep her safe. “Elizabeth Walker, you’re going to walk out this room,” he begins._

_Refusing to succumb to his compulsion, Elizabeth continues to struggle against the hybrid. She fights to avoid his eyes; she will not be compelled. Klaus is her family. She has no left in her life… her family is dead._

_“Elizabeth, you’re going to walk out of this room and when you do –”_

_In one last desperate attempt to save her memories, her hands reach upwards. The sound of a neck snapping is all she hears when she seals her eyes shut. For a moment, she cannot comprehend what she had done until Klaus’ body slumps against her own. She exhales shakily, still sobbing relentlessly. Together, they slide to the ground and she hugs his body to her own. The ruffles of her dress fan out around them and they reach out to the pool of her older sister’s warm blood, soaking it in. This is the life she chose and she will not have it taken away from her. She will make him understand._

_“Not tonight, Klaus,” she whispers through her heartbreak. “Not tonight…”_

            She stares down at her open hands, balling them into tight fists only to release them a short second later. She has lived an incredibly long life. Five hundred years ago at the town’s ball, she was supposed to die and she was supposed to be buried beside her mother and father. She was never supposed to awaken after what happened to her, but she did. Magic started her heart again and it is magic that allows her to stand today on the balcony outside of her bedroom. The dark and twisted trauma still lingers deep within the depths of her mind, devouring each and every thought she has until the only thing she has left is pain and anger. Can a vampire suffer from trauma? Is it possible for a vampire to struggle with PTSD? She has no idea and she supposes she never will. After all, everyone is different.

            It baffles her to think that she could take away all of her suffering if she just flipped the little switch in the back of her mind. To feel nothing all would lift the heavyweight from her shoulders, but she knows better than to be so stupidly reckless. Sometimes feeling nothing at all is worse than feeling every emotion that comes your way. There’s no telling what kind of monster she would become. Her humanity is what keeps her grounded. _Flip the damn switch._ Blinking back her tears, Elizabeth leans on the balcony railing and as the clouds part in the sky for the sun, she nods her head once. The fight will continue out. Charles is out there somewhere, he has been for weeks, and he is waiting for the right moment to snatch her away again. She knows better than anyone that he will not rest until she is back in her cell where he believes she belongs. When he chooses to strike, when he chooses to send his human-hybrids after her, she will be ready and she will not be alone.

            “I can tell being the center of attention is not sitting well with you,” Rebekah says as she steps through the partially open door. She wraps her coat around herself, scrunching her nose briefly at the chill in the air. “This is the fourth time you have hidden yourself away this week.”

            Elizabeth looks over her shoulder for a second to acknowledge the youngest Original. She has her hair twisted up into a ponytail and she pairs her light coat with a strikingly red lipstick, something that makes her eyes pop. She has always admired Rebekah’s natural beauty. No matter what kind of situation she is in, she always manages to keep herself put together; it’s a talent she envies.

            “Klaus wants to keep me safe, Marcel is out there somewhere running around like a madman, and Charles is hiding in the shadows,” she says as she watches the locals run up and down the streets. “Somebody will win, but it’s going to be bloody. I'm just waiting for someone to make the first move.”

            Rebekah smiles softly and takes a seat on the nearby bench. The wood creaks beneath her weight. She crosses one leg over the other and her eyes scan over Elizabeth’s body language. She’s suffering. “You’re the girl everybody wants.”

            “But, why?” Elizabeth snaps as she turns around, her back pressing against the railing. “What makes me so special?”

            “You’re special because of who turned you,” Rebekah says simply with a shrug. “The day you met Nik was the day your life ended. Everybody wants you in some way because you hold value. You are apart of our family. We would do anything to protect you. Marcel wants to bring peace so we will all work together and he knows how much you mean to Nik. And Charles, nobody knows much about him… but he wants you. He’s fixated on you.”

            “I’m starting to think it would be easier if I took off until the storm passes,” she sighs tiredly. “If I left, Charles wouldn’t be a threat to any of you. Our friends and family would be safe from him.”

            “While that may be true, Nik would never give up on you. Not now, anyway,” Rebekah says. “You should feel lucky to have a man in your life that loves you as much as he does. And it’s because of his love for you that makes you something of a rarity. You’re one of Nik’s biggest weaknesses. If they use you, if they kill or take you away, the king comes tumbling down and he will surrender his crown.”

            Elizabeth relaxes comfortably against the railing, letting go of her aggression. She has been home for a while now and not a day goes by where she is not grateful for it. “I missed you, you know,” she admits with a soft smile. “You always keep me grounded when I’m feeling sorry for myself.”

            “Well somebody has to. Nik is a handful enough. The last thing we need is him corrupting your pretty mind,” she laughs. She then falls silent for a moment, her eyes flickering to Elizabeth’s bedroom. “Stay here. I’m going to fetch something.”

            Within a second, Rebekah is gone and Elizabeth is left standing in her place in a cloud of confusion. She waits patiently until Rebekah returns with a worn envelope in her hands. She passes it over and Elizabeth examines it with a frown on her face. The letter is addressed to Klaus.

            “This is my handwriting,” she states slowly.

            Rebekah nods. “This is the letter we found after you disappeared,” she explains. “Nik will kill me if he knew I gave this to you. He never let it out of his sight when you were gone, but he’s been lax about it ever since you returned.”

            Hesitantly, Elizabeth opens the flap and from within it, she extracts the letter. Carefully, she unfolds it and is bothered to see that it is also written in her handwriting.

 

> _Dear Niklaus,_
> 
> _There is no easy way to say this to make you understand. If you have found this letter, then I am long gone. I have thought for many weeks about this and although I know it will hurt you deeply, I am doing what I absolutely must. Do not come looking for me. I don’t want you to follow my trail. My departure has been long overdue. It saddens me to acknowledge that I don’t belong here and that I don’t belong with your family. To much has happened and I realize now that you are truly the monster you try so hard to be. Although Elijah cannot see it, I know that you cannot be redeemed and I surely would have ended up dead by your hands if I stayed. I cannot forgive you for the things that you have done even though I tried my hardest to let it all go. I have left for my own safety. I once felt safe by your side, but I no longer wish to put my life on the line and wait for your next outburst. I want nothing to do with you and even though I know how you feel about me, you need to understand that I do not and will never love you._
> 
> _Please do not look for me. I am not coming back._
> 
> _Sincerely,_
> 
> _-Elizabeth Walker_

Her eyes widen as she finishes the letter and her hand comes to her mouth in shock. She understands now why Klaus has been so back and forth with her. This letter made it seem like she abandoned him, like she abandoned them all, and she cannot imagine what he must have thought upon reading this. He is so deeply afraid of abandonment that he rarely allows himself to grow close to anyone. It is because of that fear that he made the daggers, it is because of that fear he won't cave on how he feels now. 

            “Oh my god,” she says, unable to say anything else to express how she feels.

            Rebekah nods and takes the letter back, sliding it back into its envelope. “I know and I am in no way trying to justify what kind of person Nik became after you disappeared, but you can understand why he has been so broken. He took off for a week after reading it, killing anything in his path that moved. I had never seen him like that,” she recalls. “It took Elijah a year and a half to get through to him. They all believed the lie, but I never did. I tried finding you, but all I could find was a cold trail. I knew it in my gut something was wrong.”

            Taking a much-needed deep breath, Elizabeth runs a hand through her hair and glances down at the city. “I have to talk to him,” she says quietly. “I already tried telling him the letter was faked, but now that I know _why_ he’s hurt, I can try to fix it…”

            When a fist knocks on her bedroom door, cutting into their conversation, Rebekah speeds off and Elizabeth takes a moment to compose herself. Opening the bedroom door, she is, to say the least, unsurprised to see Klaus of all people standing in the hallway with a hand buried in the pocket of his worn jeans. He wears a gray long sleeve, a color that contrasts nicely with his skin ton. His eyes roam her face, taking in her beauty that has lured him in a countless amount of times.

            “What do you need, Klaus?” She asks, her voice unusually stiff.

            “Why must me checking up on you correlate to me wanting something from you?” He asks, offended. “Can I not pay you a visit out of my own, _unconditional_ , want?”

            “Let’s call it past experience,” she says with a light smile. “Come in.”

            Stepping aside, she allows Klaus into her bedroom. He walks to her desk where her journal rests and he runs his fingertips over the leather-bound cover, specifically over the etched letter _M._ Most of her belongings are labeled with his family emblem, yet she is not a Mikaelson herself. She is, for all intents and purposes, a Walker and he would very much like to remedy that one day. She is already perfect in his eyes, but he knows she would truly shine with a diamond on her finger and with his last name following her first.

            “I thought I should let you know that I spoke to Elijah about your friend Nathan,” Klaus begins.

            Elizabeth hugs her arms around herself, a grimace on her face. “I want him to get as far away from here as possible,” she says curtly. “I already called Damon and made the arrangements. He’s going to take him to New York as soon as we’re ready.”

            Klaus turns to her, his eyebrows drawn together. “I would have thought you would have liked to have him here. We can protect him, Elizabeth.”

            Shaking her head, she disagrees. “Klaus, we can barely keep ourselves safe. Nathan is human and he is Charles’ son. I don’t want to risk it. Charles wants him just as badly as he wants me. He will be safe with the Salvatore brothers. Caroline even took five minutes out of her busy schedule to help choose the safe house. She agrees it’s the best choice.”

            “If that it is what you want, then I will make the arrangements to have him moved from the Bayou tonight,” he says. “Although I am skeptical of the Salvatore brother’s ability to keep _anyone_ safe, I am confident in Caroline.”

            Grinning nearly from ear to ear, Elizabeth snorts. “Of course you are. You’ve always had a little crush on her.”

            Klaus rolls his eyes; he will not feed into that theory. Elizabeth, in the meantime, watches him carefully. She still feels as if she has to say something to him. That letter is burning a hole in the back of her mind and even though she knows it will only upset him, she has to make it right. The guilt will crush her.

            “You know I didn’t write that letter, right?” She asks slowly.

            Klaus stiffens a bit, caught off guard by the change of topic. “I am fully aware.”

            “You say that, but you still cannot look at me without looking at me like I wrote it. I can see it in your eyes and I can tell just by how you act around me,” she points out. “I’ve said it a million times Klaus and I will say it a million times more. You act like a monster, like the bastard you feel you are, but it has never worked on me and you are so much more than that.”

            Klaus sighs, understanding where all of this is coming from. “How on earth did you get your hands on the letter?” He demands, voice cross.

            Elizabeth shakes her head, refusing to throw Rebekah under the bus. “How I got it is irrelevant,” she says carefully. “What was written to you did not come from me. I would never and could never leave you or anyone in this family like that.”

            Sadly, Klaus shifts his eyes elsewhere as he speaks. This topic hurts him deeply, but it’s one that needs to be discussed in order to move on from it. “It felt real at the time. I spent years trying to figure out what I had done to hurt you so badly. When I had accepted that you were gone, there was something nagging at me… It felt wrong, but Elijah… he made sure I moved on.”

            Taking her chances, Elizabeth reaches upwards and presses her lips against Klaus’ forehead. Her lips linger, but before too long she pulls away. Klaus stands there, entranced, and he looks as if he is struggling with an inner conflict.

            “Whatever happens, no matter _what_ happens,” Elizabeth begins, “I promise we will do it together. I promise we will end this.”

            “Do not make promises you cannot keep, Elizabeth,” Klaus says, throwing her own words back at her. “Your life hangs in the balance. I can see it. I can feel it. Until Charles is dead, you will never be safe. Do not promise me will do it together. Instead, promise me you will never stop fighting.”

            Smiling slightly, Elizabeth nods. “I promise.”

            Walking down the steps of the stairs, Elizabeth comes to the main floor to find Elijah sitting across the room at one of the tables. He has his journal out in front of him and he furiously writes in it, a slight scowl on his face. She tilts her head to the side as she watches him for a moment, trying to figure out what she is going to say to him. Although she has kept her distance from all of the commotion, Elijah has been worse. She has hardly seen him since she came home last month and it bothers her. Moving forward, she crosses the floor and sits in the empty seat beside him. He does not look up at her, nor does he stop writing. Huffing, she leans back in her chair.

            "You've been avoiding me, Elijah," she says slowly.

            At the sound of her voice, his hand stops moving and he looks over to her with kind eyes. In truth, he barely noticed she was there; it is all too easy for him to become lost in his writing. "I must say, it is good to see your face around here," he deflects.

            "Nuh-uh," she says sternly with a wagging finger. "You're worse than me. I've only seen you once this week."

            Knowing that he simply cannot run away this time, Elijah nods and caps his pen; he will return to his writing some other time. “You are correct," he agrees. "I have been... dodging you, so to speak."

            Saddened, Elizabeth rests her hand on his forearm. “You don’t need to. You’re my brother, Elijah. I want to see you.”

            Uncomfortably, Elijah meets her prying gaze. He has always been fascinated by the innocence her eyes hold. She is so pure, yet a fire burns within her; he admires that about her. “Elizabeth… you must know that I feel immeasurably guilty. I was the one who told Niklaus to stop searching for you.”

            “You feel like you’re at fault for my disappearance stretching over a decade?” She asks, looking for clarification.

            “When the Augustine facilities were around, vampires were tortured endlessly in the name of science. When they ceased to exist, there was nothing more to fear,” he explains. “Vampires went mad while being held prisoner. When I found out that you had been held under similar conditions, I felt this massive weight slam into me.” Elijah uses gestures to get his point across. “Rebekah never stopped looking, but I had given up. I was foolish. You were in trouble, you needed my help, and I failed you. I broke my promise to you.”

            Trying to comfort him, Elizabeth scoots closer and never takes her hand from his arm. “There is no way you could have known. Charles was smart. He took me and hid it behind a lie that Klaus would believe.”

            “While that may be true, I put a stop to Niklaus’ searching,” he argues. “We surely would have found you sooner had that not been the case.”

            “Please do not dwell on it, Elijah,” she begs. “I don’t blame you for trying to keep Klaus roped in. Somebody had to.”

            "You don't seem to understand, Elizabeth," Elijah says with a sigh. "Not too long after you turned, I promised to protect you. Regardless of what you may have wanted or what you may have done in my shoes, you still needed my help and I failed to give it to you. You were a prisoner, held against your will, and tortured for nearly eleven years. My promise to you was broken."

            Elijah has always been good on his word and promises mean the world to him, she knows that. Silently, she leans over the table and pulls him into a hug. Stiffly, he hugs her back and she holds him tightly.

            "It's not your fault," she says. It kills her to know what he has been thinking. "Your promise to me is still good."

            Pulling away, she smiles softly and picks up the pen. She uncaps it and holds it out to him, gesturing down to his journal. "Now get back to your writing," she encourages. "Rebekah wants to go out and do something. Will I see you at dinner this time?"

            Elizabeth takes the pen, a smile of his own appearing on his face. "I believe I can fit you into my busy schedule."

            Laughing, Elizabeth stands and walks away from him knowing that they’re' in a better place than where they had been. Although Charles did a lot of damage to her, he also did a lot of damage to her family. They're all broken in their own way. Klaus is burring his feelings out of fear, Elijah can hardly look at her without feeling guilty, and Rebekah is frustrated because she had been so close, yet not close enough. With time, she has to believe these problems will die down, but she knows better. As soon as their lives get back on track. something will arise to take it all away from them. It always seems to go that way.

            She rests her head on the counter and closes her eyes, breathing in deeply as she tries to clear her crowding thoughts from her head. Maybe she should take up meditation or yoga again; that might actually do the trick. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she lifts her head up and looks around the bar as the many faces around her smile and burst with laughter in their own private conversations. They all seem to happy, perfectly unaware of the darkness that surrounds them. She wonders just how many of them would freak out if they knew vampires sit no more than a few feet away from them. In fact, she wonders what it would be like to be human again. Would it be peaceful? It’s not a thought she can allow herself to spend too much time on. She had her shot at being human long ago and she traded it all away.

            Rebekah sits beside her, twirling her wine around in her glass as she watches the TV across the bar mindlessly. Resting in and around the bar-stool beside her is a bunch of bags full of clothes from their day-long shopping spree. It was an impromptu trip, something that Rebekah insisted that she needed to do to say goodbye to the woman she used to be before disappearing. Although shopping therapy has never been one of her favorites, she has to admit that it helped her readjust herself a tad. Sighing, she glances over to the blonde and tries to find common ground within herself.

            "Klaus will want to know where we are," she says apathetically.

            Rebekah scoffs and lowers her wine glass to the counter, swiveling in her chair. "And why should I give a damn about what my brother wants?"

            Elizabeth laughs anxiously, briefly looking down at her folded hands. "Mostly because he may try to tear up the town looking for us if we don't at least text him to let him know we're safe."

            Rebekah opens her mouth to speak, but she promptly shuts it when she spots a familiar face entering the bar and walking towards them. Elizabeth raises an eyebrow and looks over her shoulder, finding herself to be just as surprised. Marcel walks towards them with four guys following casually behind. Elizabeth looks between all of their faces, unsure of what to make of this turn of events.

            "I would advise you leave Klaus in the dark for a little while longer," he says as he plops down in the empty bar-stool beside Elizabeth.

            "Marcel... Have you come to kidnap me again?" She asks blandly, too tired to give a damn.

            "Kidnap, no. However, I would appreciate it if you could come with me," he says smoothly. He leans his back up against the counter as he looks to her, his eyes roaming her face. If the bags under her eyes are any indication, she has not been sleeping much.

            "She's not going anywhere with you," Rebekah chimes in. "If you want her to go with you, then I'm coming with."

            Marcel looks to the youngest Original with sorrow in his eyes. Their history is long and complicated and he hates to do this to her, but there's no other way. "Bekah, as much as I would love for you to join us, it has to just be Elizabeth."

            Abandoning her wine glass altogether, Rebekah scowls darkly. "Please tell me you're joking," she growls.

            “I want to make this inherently clear,” Marcel says strongly. “This is no longer about my fight with Klaus. I want to speak to Elizabeth because this is now entirely about her. I need her to come with me.”

            Elizabeth scoffs, almost offended. “You seriously want me to come with you after how you treated me the last time I was in your care?”

            “Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot. I’m trying to make up for that now,” he says wearily. “I’m willing to drop my fight with Klaus, we will go along with the terms we have set in place, but I need you to come with me.”

            Rebekah goes to argue some more, but Elizabeth cuts her off by raising her hand. She looks into Marcel's eyes, searching for any ulterior motive. Although she is often criticized for her choice to stand by Klaus, she is an impeccable judge of character. Realistically, she has plenty of reason to never trust Marcel again, but she detects no lies nor does she detect any foul play. Exhaling slowly, she swivels to face him.

            “I want your word that you will let me go home,” she demands, earning herself protests from Rebekah. “I will not be held hostage again.”

            Marcel nods. “Of course. All I want to do is talk,” he says sincerely. "I have information that you're going to want to hear. It's just better if you hear it first. Trust me on this. I wouldn't lie to you."

            Although she knows just how pissed off she's going to make Klaus by doing this, she agrees and stands from her stool. As she leaves the bar with him, Elizabeth shoves her hands into her jacket pockets and keeps her senses on high-alert. Should he try anything that goes against their agreement, she will be ready. Being held prisoner for ten years was enough. She will not go through it again.

            “I hope you know I never wanted to hurt you,” Marcel says once inside an SUV. "You've been a good friend to me. You helped raise me... I'm sorry for what I did to you."

            Elizabeth shakes her head, buckling her seat belt. "It's not me you have to apologize to you. It's Klaus," she says. "You threatened his family and now you're going behind his back to broker some kind of deal with me."

            "What I did to Klaus does _not_ concern me right now," Marcel snaps.

            Glowering, Elizabeth relaxes into her seat with doubt on her face. “And what makes you so sure he’ll abide by your rules once I’m free again?”

            Marcel sighs, understanding where she is coming from. They both know Niklaus Mikaelson, but none know him better than the woman beside him. “Then I will cross that bridge when we get there,” he says. “You have no idea what kind of a man Klaus became in your absence. You think he was bad before? You should have seen him while you were gone.”

            “Klaus is Klaus… he has always acted like a monster, Marcel,” Elizabeth says sadly. She knows all too well what kind of a man he is and what kind of man he makes himself out to be. “If you think taking the upper hand will change anything, then you haven’t been paying attention. You should have gone directly to the compound if you wanted to do this.”

            Marcel reaches out to lightly brush some of Elizabeth’s loose curls from her face to which she jerks away from. Her dark eyes stay fixated out the window and trees blur by. She will not be damned to the same patterns.

            “There are larger concerns, Elizabeth,” Marcel says in a low voice. “There are things that I am discovering that will tear you apart. This fight I got going on with Klaus is only the first wave of the things to come.”

            Angry, she snaps her head towards him and her eyes change color. “Do not threaten me. Klaus cares a great deal about you, but I will not hesitate to rip your throat out.”

            “Then you will have to forgive me for doing this.” Marcel pulls his hand away, but he is quick to pull something from within his coat pocket and to plunge it into her neck. Elizabeth gasps and tries to push against him, but as the contents of the syringe enter her bloodstream, she begins to fall unconscious. “All will make sense soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT! This is where the bulk of the action and typical-Mikaelson drama starts! After this chapter, shit starts going down. 
> 
> I wonder what information Marcel has... HHMMM. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for any typos. :)


	9. Lyanna Walker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a flashback, it is revealed how Elizabeth became a vampire. In present time, Marcel and Josh reveal a disturbing discovery that alters Elizabeth's entire world.

**1517**

_In a matter of seconds, twelve men and woman burst into the room and she can hear nothing but the high shrill of blood-curdling screams._

_Her ears, although purely human, can distinctly hear the sound of hearts being torn from chests. The unmistakable sound of fangs sinking into the necks of innocent people sends chills and prickles of fear up her spine. Niklaus pulls her close against his body protectively, his eyes snapping all over the room. Moving quickly as a ravenous man charges at them, he lifts her and rushes to the edge of the room where they are no longer trapped in the crowd. Clumsily, he sets her down to her feet and she struggles to breathe as her body wrestles with fight or flight. Before she can ask him to stay, Klaus is gone within her next breath. Terrified, she watches in horror as witches and rabid vampires wreak havoc on the townsfolk and noblemen._

_“Niklaus! Elijah!” She calls, searching for either one of the brothers._

_A woman who had been standing no more than two feet away from her collapses to the ground and Elizabeth chokes back her fear as a man wipes her blood from his mouth with the back of his dirty hand. With his true face staring back at her threateningly, he smiles wickedly and licks his bottom lip slowly. Her heart is hammering against her chest. Thinking quickly, she breaks the leg of a nearby table and she holds it up defensively. However, she knows deep down that she is no match for a vampire._

_“You do not want to hurt me, sir,” she says strongly, not a trace of fear to be detected in her voice. “You will regret it should you choose to.”_

_The vampire laughs deeply and loudly, masking the sound of the screams. He steps closer to her, eyeing her elegant dress. “The only thing I will regret is not feeding on the delicious blood you have pumping through your body,” he taunts. “Why not let me have a taste?”_

_In the blink of an eye, the vampire lunges forward and Elizabeth plunges the wooden stake into his chest. His blood covered fangs barely scratch her skin, creating small pools of blood around the mark. He stills, groaning, but he is not dead. Stumbling back, he rips the stake from his chest and throws it to the floor. Elizabeth watches with wide eyes. She knows, wherever they may be specifically, Klaus and Elijah are in the crowd killing the attackers and defending the crowd just as they should be, as she wants them to be, but she also knows what this moment means for her because they are not by her side. Bravely, she meets the bloodthirsty eyes of the vampire as he growls. Moving in a blur, he shoves her back violently._

_Her delicate body slams hard against the window of the high ceiling, shattering the glass, but not falling through as the thick window pane catches her. She drops to the floor like a sack of bricks, her spine breaking upon the impact. Crying out in pain, she carefully rolls herself over, her muscles burning. Shards of thick glass stick out from her chest and she whimpers in pain as she struggles to breathe through her punctured lungs. The dress Klaus had given her is now stained with her blood and it’s torn from her fall, completely destroyed. The vampire saunters up to her and he kneels before her broken body, grinning from ear to ear as a drop of blood rolls down his chin._

_“Look at that… You’re making my job a thousand times easier, sweetheart,” he laughs heartily._

_Elizabeth takes short, ragged breaths and although she can hardly see through her cloudy vision, she brings a hand to her chest and she pulls one of the glass shards out with a swift yank as it cuts deeply into her palm. The vampire licks his lips hungrily and he moves to plunge down on her, but he does not get far. Klaus appears behind him and he rips the vampire’s heart out. His eyes find Elizabeth’s when the vampire’s body drops and she wheezes, choking on her own blood._

_“No, no, no…” He whispers in fear. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you… No, Elizabeth…”_

_Dropping down to his knees, he pushes her beautiful hair from her blood-splattered face. She looks up at the hybrid, weakly moving her blood-covered and cut up hand to cover his. “It’s okay, Niklaus,” she whispers, choking. “It will be okay.”_

_“No, you are not going to die, Elizabeth,” he assures her as he bites into his wrist. “Not today. Not while I live. I will not break my promise to you.”_

_He offers his bleeding wrist to her, but she is far too gone to bring it to her flushed lips. As her head rolls to the side and her eyes begin to close, Klaus forces the blood into her mouth by grabbing her jaw and pressing his wrist to her mouth. He sighs with momentary relief as he hears her swallow, but it is already much too late. As her last breath passes, she can feel Klaus desperately pulling the glass from her chest as he yells in rage for his brother. He begs her to stay awake, calling her name over and over again. And it’s funny, she thinks. She has never seen him quite like this. He never wanted Vampirism for her, but she is strangely okay with it. Letting go, her heart beats weakly one last time and she falls into a peaceful rest._

_She does not know how much time has passed when her eyes snap open. She takes in a gasp of air, sitting up in a rush of panic. Her eyes dart around for the vampire who harmed her, but the room has been remedied of anyone who does not belong. Only dead bodies and pools of warm blood remain. She looks down at her body and then at her hands, trying to understand what has happened to her. She was dying and Klaus… he fed her his blood. To her left, she sees the hybrid out of the corner of her eye. He does not face her. Instead, he is carefully focused on the destruction in front of them almost as if he is terrified to allow himself to look at her._

_“Klaus,” she croaks. Her voice does not sound like her own. It’s hoarse and gravely. Foreign._

_Relieved to hear that she is awake and that he did not completely fail her, he turns to face her hesitantly._ _His eyes are filled with anger and pain and Elizabeth is sure the horrified expression on her face is not helping the matter._

_“I’m so sorry, Elizabeth,” he apologizes. “I never should have left your side.”_

_Elizabeth looks down at her body once more. She runs her hands over the ruined dress. “I’m sorry about the dress. It was lovely,” she says sadly._

_Klaus raises an eyebrow and kneels beside her in bewilderment. “Love, you are dead… and yet you worry about the dress?” He asks._

_Elizabeth looks up at the man beside her, a quiet sigh escaping her lips. “I know I am transitioning, Klaus,” she whispers. “You need not be delicate towards me.”_

_With hurt in his eyes, Klaus looks at the girl who he swore to look after, who they all swore to protect. Gently, he cups the side of her face. “This is not what I wanted for you. I have ruined you. I have damned you to a life of hell.”_

            “Klaus, I am perfectly fine,” Elizabeth argues back, her eyes rolling.

            “ _You call kidnapping fine?_ ” He demands heatedly. “ _Must we also get your head checked?_ ”

            Elizabeth glowers out onto the city as heavy rain hammers against the window. Her hand tightly clutches her phone, but not so hard that it breaks… even though the idea of crunching something is incredibly enticing to her right now.

            “For the last time, I went willingly,” she seethes.

            “ _Yes, you went willing into the hands of the enemy, whom, may I add, has held you for three days without a single drop of the information he promised_ ,” Klaus argues back.

            Somewhere from within the room Klaus stands in, Elizabeth can hear Elijah sighing. She listens in on his voice, eager to hear what he has to say about this.

            “ _Brother, may I suggest calming down?_ ” He says slowly. “ _It was stupid of her to go alone, but I also believe she is fully capable of handling herself in this situation. She’s not delicate._ ”

            “ _Capable, is she? If she was so capable of handling herself, she never would have been captured ten years ago, Elijah,_ ” Klaus snarls.

            Elizabeth rolls her eyes, looking down at the blood bags that rest on the table. “I’m going to hang up if all you’re going to do is harangue me for willingly going with Marcel.”

            Klaus grumbles but subsides his frustration. “ _You have twenty-four hours to return home before I find you myself and put a stop to this nonsense_.”

            “ _Niklaus, please. You’re making this unnecessarily complicated,_ ” Elijah complains.

            “I will return home when I get the information I was promised,” Elizabeth cuts in. “Not a minute before. Please do not tear anyone’s heads off.”

            Before anything more can be said against her, Elizabeth hands up and grabs for one of the blood bags she has been eyeing for the past five minutes. The blood feels good against her tongue, washing away any of the thirst she may have felt prior. Her eyes return to the window and she lightly touches the glass, feeling the cold against her fingertips. For exactly three days, she has sat by this window waiting for Marcel to return with the information he promised her. She feels like she’s going insane in this room and even though it is considerably better than her old, dirty cell that Charles kept her in, she still feels an overwhelming need to escape. Nevertheless, she keeps her place. Should she try to break free again, Marcel will only come after her and the cycle will continue in an endless loop until Klaus kills somebody.

            To her right, somebody knocks on the heavy hotel door before opening it. Marcel steps through with a plate of floor and a drink of his choice. He brings both to the table, but Elizabeth does not go for either. Instead, she shoves both right into the trash can. Her temper has become quite short in the midst of her inconveniences.

            “Liz, I’m trying here,” Marcel sighs. “I know you’re upset and I _am_ sorry. If you’re going to believe anything about me, then please at least believe that.”

            Scoffing, Elizabeth squares up with Marcel. She could care less that he is considerably taller than she is. If she so desired to, she could take him down in a matter of seconds. “I passed upset days ago, Marcel,” she says darkly, the blood rushing to her eyes. “I am feeling rather _irate_ now.”

            Taking a half step back, Marcel raises both hands to show he means no harm. “Alright, take it down a notch. I promise you can go home soon. Some things came up that I needed to handle.”

            Elizabeth shakes her head, too agitated to care. “And those things took three days to handle? _My ass_ , Marcel.”

            Marcel smiles and rests his hand on Elizabeth's shoulder, to which she shoves off. “I gotta say, I missed you,” he laughs. “Your sass is one of kind, sweetheart.”

            Having nothing more to say to the man, Elizabeth walks off and returns her attention to the window. Marcel watches her knowing that he has deeply damaged their relationship. He does not wish to play the game this way but has very few options left and not a whole lot of time. He hopes, one day, she can forgive him for going about this in the most ass-backward way possible.

            “Look, I know you don’t trust me, Liz,” Marcel says. “There is a lot on my plate right now, things you aren’t aware of, and I’m hoping this will help.”

            The hotel room door opens once again and in comes one of Marcel’s goons, pushing a man with a blindfold on. Elizabeth stares curiously, quickly putting together who this is.

            “Josh?” She says, rising from the table.

            Josh blinks a couple of times as the blindfold is ripped off of him, a little disoriented. “Yeah… It’s me,” he agrees. “Thank you, Marcel, for kidnapping me… _again_. I figured we were past that considering we’ve been working together for weeks.”

            Marcel says nothing and he leaves the room with his vampire goon, leaving Elizabeth and Josh alone. Elizabeth is the first to move. Slowly, she walks towards him and he watches her with nervous eyes. Neither of them is quite sure of what to do right now.

            “I never really got the chance to thank you for busting me out,” she says. “You saved everybody from a lot of unnecessary trouble.”

            Josh nods and takes a seat on the edge of the full-sized bed, looking around the room. “You look a hell of a lot better since I saw you last,” he comments. “You don’t look terrified or fragile anymore.”

            Smiling, Elizabeth nods in an agreement. “A change of pace does wonders for a person. I’m back home, where I belong. I can focus on what needs to be done now instead of what might happen.”

            Josh rubs the back of his neck, looking around at her anxiously. “Things literally cannot be a worse state, though,” he adds on grimly. “You got Charles lurking around… Nobody knows what moves to make, if they should make any moves at all.”

            Elizabeth looks down to her feet, the ever-pressing weight on her shoulders feels a bit heavier now. “He’s still coming for me, isn’t he?”

            “He’s probably waiting for a moment of weakness,” Josh sighs. He has been around the block, so to speak, a few times and he knows how these things go. “The moment you drop your guard, he will come. I’ve been watching his guys like a hawk. They’re getting ready for something nasty.”

            Although she has long suspected it, it still scares her to hear it. With a shaky exhale, she runs a hand down her face. Closing her eyes, she takes a moment to calm herself. She cannot let the fear take over. Not now, not ever. The second she lets the fear in, he wins. She promised Klaus she would fight and she meant it. If Charles wants her, then he can come for her himself.

            “Look, I’m not just here on a social call…” Josh begins slowly. “Nathan and I have been doing some recon on Charles, trying to figure out what the hell he’s up to. We haven’t found much, but we did uncover something you’re not gonna like.”

            Elizabeth furrows her eyebrows, her arms crossing over her chest. “As if I could ever like anything that man does,” she mutters. “What did you find?”

            Josh rises from the bed. He looks as if he’s struggling to find the right words to say to her. “We’ve been watching the people he works with. We’ve frequently seen a woman going in and out of the facility. Nathan and I had no idea who she is, but Marcel knew. Brown hair, blue eyes… a serious attitude,” he says. “There’s no easy way to say this, Liz. Lyanna isn’t dead. She’s alive.”

            Her body freezes and her thoughts come to screeching halt. She has not heard that name spoken for centuries and she should _not_ be hearing it now from the mouth of a young vampire. “You’re wrong,” she says sternly. “I watched her die. Klaus ripped her heart out.”

            Josh shakes his head, pulling his hands from his pockets. “We know what we saw, Elizabeth. Marcel confirmed it. Lyanna is alive. That’s what has had him so freaked out. If you say Klaus ripped her heart out, then I would ask him about it. Lyanna is alive and she’s working with Charles.”

            The news is tearing her apart on the inside. Her sister was a great witch, but she had to die. That was the only way to protect everyone. There is simply no possible way she could be alive today. “You’re lying to me,” she spats. 

            “Elizabeth, I have no reason to lie to you. You’re my friend and you’re one of the few people I actually like around here,” Josh attempts. “I came here to warn you. There are things, information, that is coming out now and I don’t think it’s good for anyone. We all have to prepare. I hate to say it, but Marcel was right about needing everyone on the same page.”

            Her heart is slamming against her chest and when Marcel walks through the door again, she grabs him by the throat and slams him up against the nearest wall. She can hardly think as a mix of untamed emotions twists around inside of her.

            “You knew!” She yells. “You knew my sister is alive and you didn’t tell me the second you found out?”

            Marcel fights against her hold, feet kicking out in desperation to touch the ground. “Liz, please… hear me out,” he says. “There are still things… you need to know…”

            In a single movement, Elizabeth throws Marcel across the room effortlessly. He lands on the table, breaking it. Josh watches with wide eyes, dashing out of Elizabeth’s way when she crosses his path. Furiously, she grabs Marcel by the shirt and she lifts his back off the floor, getting dangerously close to his face.

            “You _are_ going to take me back to the compound, do you understand me?” She demands heatedly.

            “Elizabeth, please. You need to calm down,” Marcel tries again.

            “What do you know, Marcel?” She inquires, her true face beginning to show. “You brought Josh here to tell me my sister is alive. I will not harm him because he saved my life, he _is_ my friend, but I will not hesitate to rip your heart out should you withhold something like this from me again. Are we clear?”

            “I know that Charles is not who you think he is,” he confesses. “I’ve been doing some digging. His family comes from a long line of witches. I don’t know what he is, but he is not a vampire, a werewolf, a human, _or_ a damn witch.”

            Taking a breath to calm herself, Elizabeth releases Marcel’s shirt and his body thuds against the ground. She then turns to Josh who shows no fear. He knew that by telling her, she would be upset as she has every right to be. This woman was meant to be dead. She died five hundred years ago, only a handful of years after Elizabeth turned.

            “How do you this woman is my sister?” She asks, breathing heavily. “Lyanna has been gone for centuries. Anyone who knew of her existence apart from me and the Mikaelsons have long since passed.”

            Josh reaches into his back pocket for a folded image. He passes it to Elizabeth who takes it and examines who is pictured in the photo. A woman with loose curls in her hair and strikingly blue eyes stands next to Charles. She is only a few inches taller than Elizabeth and her smile is captivating, a feature she remembers all too well.

            “Lyanna…” She breathes.

            Her mind feels like its suffocating. Lyanna had become too powerful in 1524, twisted by dark magic, and the problem grew to the point where it was either her life or the life of everyone around her. Elizabeth knew that the older sister she had always known was already dead inside of the shell of the woman Lyanna had become, but it was not a decision she could make. It was Klaus and Elijah's idea, but it was Klaus that ultimately decided and it was he who put an end to her life before anyone else could be killed. To know that after all this time her sister lives and has been working with Charles for however long… she cannot process it. It simply does not and will make any form of sense in her mind. For decades, she was eaten alive by the guilt of what they did to Lyanna. It took her a century alone to move on from it and put it behind her. Now, it feels like all of those wounds are opening again and somebody is pouring salt into them. Had Lyanna known she was trapped in a cell for nearly eleven years, tortured by Charles every day?

            “We’re all on the same side, Liz,” Marcel says when he gets the sense that it’s safe to approach her again. “This fight I have going with Klaus stops now. We have to start preparing for whatever the hell is going on with your sister and Charles.”

            Elizabeth folds the image and sticks it into her pocket. She has no idea why her sister is alive when she _knows_ Klaus killed her. Had he lied to her? Was her death faked for some unknown cause? She has no idea, but she will find out.

            “I need to go home, Marcel…” She says quietly.

            Seeing that they have come to a mutual agreement, Marcel nods. “Under one condition,” he barters. “Keep Klaus in line. That’s all I’m asking. Fail to do so, and you will have much more than just Charles Richardson to worry about.”

            Elizabeth shoves past the gate of the Abattoir, eyes darting around the main floor for the man she needs to speak with the most. She runs up the stairs and listens carefully for any indication of where he could be within this giant house.

            “ _Niklaus, I fear there is much more to this than we know,_ ” Elijah advises.

            “ _I don’t care. How many times are we going to let him walk all over us before we’ve had enough of his shenanigans?_ ”

            _The study._ Running through the hallway, she finds herself standing in front of the double wooden doors. Forcefully, she rips them open and manages to capture the attention of both boys with her mere abrupt presence; their conversation pausing in their open mouths.

            “Elizabeth?” Elijah asks, taken aback by her appearance.

            She does not and can not stop for questions. Still acting entirely on impulse, blinded by her confusion and fear, she walks heatedly to Klaus and shoves him hard against the wall. It was he who killed Lyanna, surely he must know something about this. She grips his shirt and stares intently into his eyes, making sure she has his undivided attention.

            “I am going to ask you _one_ question and I want the truth. Do you understand me?” She asks, getting only a nod from him as he is, truthfully, a little afraid to speak. “Did you know about Lyanna?”

            The hybrid looks to his bother for assistance but receives absolutely none. Elijah is enjoying this entirely too much. “Elizabeth, sweetheart, I need a little more than that to go off of. What about Lyanna?”

            Losing what little control she had left on her temper, Elizabeth wraps her hand around his throat and she shoves him upward until his feet no longer touch the floor. She knows, deep down, that she needs to calm down, but all she can think about is her sister and the lie that blankets her death. Was it Lyanna that caused her to get captured nearly eleven years ago? Was it Lyanna who hired Charles to do the sinister work that he does? Is she the real mastermind behind her torture? Her head is spinning, it is an uncontrolled and a destructive force.

            “She is alive, Klaus,” she spats. “Lyanna is alive and she is working with Charles.”

            Trying to break through to her, Klaus does not fight her hold, nor does he complain when she tightens her grip. Instead, he winces and reaches out to her shoulder gently. He understands what she is going through. “Elizabeth, Lyanna is dead. I killed her myself, you were there. Whatever Marcel told you is not true.”

            From her back pocket, she pulls the photo out and she holds it up in front of him. “Marcel wasn’t the one who told me. It wasn’t even Marcel who found out first. It was Nathan and Josh,” she clarifies. “She is alive and I need you to tell me if you knew. Please, _please_ , do not lie to me.”

            Klaus examines the photo twice over and he cannot disagree. That is, undoubtedly, Lyanna Walker. “Elizabeth, I knew nothing of this. I assumed Lyanna was dead, like the rest of us, when I tore her heart from her chest. Elijah was there when I burned her body.”

            Once the realization settles in, Elizabeth gasps and releases her hold on Klaus’ throat, dropping him to his feet. She stumbles backward and bumps into the corner of the wooden desk behind her, bringing a hand up to her mouth as it begins to tremble. Klaus rubs his throat uncomfortably and he exchanges unspoken words with Elijah who, in return, leaves the study to go find answers.

            “Love, you need to breathe,” Klaus says as he edges closer. “You’re turning colors.”

            Shaking her head, unable to listen to him, she staggers away from the desk and moves to the middle of the room. Her hand slips into her hair and she tugs on it, unable to breathe through the weight that presses down on her. Her sister is not supposed to be alive. There is no… she cannot be… She was _dead…_ There is no way she could be alive and working with the man that held her captive. Drawing a breath in sharply, she drops to her knees. Klaus comes to her side, dropping to his knees as well, and he turns her face towards his. He searches through her eyes, digging his way through her pain.

            “You have every right to feel this way,” he reassures. “I promise you, sweetheart, we will figure out why Lyanna still breaths after I saw to it her body burned to a crisp.”

            As she focuses on Klaus’ eyes, she steadies her breathing and all but slumps against him, grabbing onto his jacket for security. Sitting back onto the ground, Klaus tucks her head underneath his chin and he strokes her hair, trying to bring her comfort.

            “Lyanna was dark… and if she is truly alive, then I think it’s safe to say we have more than just Charles to worry about. Marcel was right. I should have listened to him the first time,” Elizabeth says wearily as her heart finally settles. “We will be going to war. We killed Lyanna for a reason.”

            Klaus smiles wickedly knowing that his face is out of her line of sight. He does, occasionally enjoy a good scuffle. A dead witch back from the dead? This will be nothing short of a challenge and it is one he is eager to dive in to. “Well,” he pauses brightly, “then I suppose we best get ready. Lyanna awaits.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be fun. I pprrrooommiiisseeee.


	10. Grimoire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a long night of restlessness, Elizabeth, Elijah, and Rebekah begin working on a timeline for Charles' life. It is not until Freya joins the group that an old book, a book that was supposed to be destroyed, comes back into play. Later, Josh shows up with some news about a member of the family who has possibly fallen into the hands of Lyanna under everyone's notice.

If flipping her switch didn't come with so many consequences, she would do it.

            Her thoughts are swallowing her whole as she looks at her reflection, challenging her at every turn. It is well into the night now, not a single voice can be heard within the compound. Her breaths are steady and her heartbeat is level, she is perfectly calm. Nevertheless, she still feels on edge and it has been two weeks since she got her last good night's worth of rest. For two weeks she has known about Lyanna and it has been two weeks since she felt herself break a little. Everyone keeps telling her that what she is feeling is normal, yet it feels entirely wrong. Is she supposed to be angry or sad because the older sister she had to kill is somehow alive? Or is she supposed to be calm? She takes a steady breath inward, letting the argument in her head go. There's no use on dwelling on it when she knows she will feel entirely different in the morning.

            Growing desperate to feel something, _anything_ , she extends her arm out to touch her reflection in the full-length mirror before her. Her face is tired, her pajamas bring her little comfort, and her hair is a mess piled on top of her head. These days, if she is not thinking about Lyanna then she is most definitely thinking about Charles. On a good day, she'll be preoccupied with Klaus, but it always comes back around to the same two. Lyanna and Charles. Sighing, she drops her hand back to her side and she turns away to leave her bathroom.

            In her youth, Elizabeth and Lyanna had been as close as two sisters could be. They were famously known as the _Walker Sisters_ and if they wanted something, they could easily get their hands on it with their charms and brilliant smiles; It was an effortless talent of theirs. Elizabeth recalls just how fascinated she was by her sister’s magic and although she could have become a witch herself, she had her sights set on other goals. By the time she had turned eighteen and Lyanna twenty, Lyanna had grown to be exceptionally powerful. It was not long after Lyanna’s first accidental kill in 1515 that Elizabeth had met Klaus. By 1517, shortly after Elizabeth had turned into a vampire, Lyanna had lost touch with reality. Lyanna was consumed by her magic for another five years, falling further and further down the rabbit hole. Anything that followed only involved deaths that had to be covered up and tragedy and it was no more than two years later, in 1524, that Klaus had killed her.

            Lyanna had tapped into dark magic that ate away at her soul until there was nothing left. The grief followed Elizabeth for decades until she forced herself to move on from all that happened. For the centuries afterward, she always carried the guilt of her sister’s murder, she always told herself that it was done for the right reasons. Klaus killed her to keep everyone safe and although she lives and breathes today, that has to remain the truth. Lyanna was stopped for a reason and if she truly is the woman in the picture, then there surely must be something terrible coming their way. Lyanna has had a lot of unknown time to prepare.

            Brushing her hair with her fingers, Elizabeth turns to one of the large windows in her room and she stands still to admire the night sky. The moonlight cascades down on her pale skin, illuminating her elegant and graceful features. She feels as if she is stuck in a nightmare that plays over and over again. Although she tries, she cannot wake up from it. Deep down, she wishes she could go back in time so she could stop Charles before he could start the chain reaction of events that would lead her right where she stands today. All of her troubles are centered around him and someday soon, she will get the answers to the questions that burn on her tongue.

            “You are truly beautiful.”

            She turns around and is surprised to find Klaus standing no more than a foot away from her. She smiles tiredly in the darkness of her room, not bothering to make eye contact with him. Truthfully speaking, she is terrified of what he may see should she look at him.

            The hybrid grabs a lock of her hair and he tucks it behind her ear, uncovering her stunning face. He has started to wonder if there will ever be a day in their long lives where he will grow tired to looking at her, but he knows that would be impossible. She is simply too perfect, like a painting that an artist spent many hours on. “You’ve been distant,” he says. “You’ve been hiding from me and the family.”

            Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest, trying to make herself seem small. She hasn’t felt the urge to do this since being in her cell, but the urge thrives within her tonight. “It’s not every day that you find out your every move is being watched,” she sighs. “And it’s not every day that you hear the sister you helped kill is actually alive and is working with the man that tortured you for nearly eleven years. You can forgive me for needing some space to clear my head.”

            Klaus gently skims his finger down the side of her face, feeling the softness of her skin against his own. She lightly presses into his touch, craving something more. Klaus, detecting this, moves to cup either side of her face with his hands. She reaches up and lightly holds his wrists, longing for his touch even though he stands before her now.

            “You haven’t been sleeping, have you?” He asks, a thumb skimming just under her right eye against the dark shadow.

            She closes her eyes for a brief moment and is instantly met with the face of Charles. He’s all she sees anymore. “He’s always there when I dream. I can’t get him out of my head, Klaus,” she confesses. “I have nightmares about what he would do to me. All of the cutting, stabbing, the burning, the injections, the drowning, the breaking…”

            Klaus stiffens as he listens to her speak about the things that were done to her. It makes him feel sick to his stomach, drenched in white-hot anger and an untamed urge to seek revenge.  She does not talk about it often and he supposes that would be because she is terrified of reliving her darkest days, understandably so. He has seen very little of what happened to her just from being in her head while she sleeps and he knows that is exactly what she needs right now, whether she wants to admit it or not. Asking for help is not something either of them is particularly good at.

            “Darling, you need to rest. Not sleeping will only make it worse for you. You’ll go mad and everything will blur together.”

            “I don’t _need_ to sleep, Klaus,” she sighs, gesturing to the blood bags in the trash can beside her desk. “I’m a vampire.”

            A little concerned by the amount of the blood she has been drinking to keep herself going, Klaus raises his eyebrows and drops his hands down to his sides. “And by day five, you will be unable to go more than an hour without blood.”

            Elizabeth’s eyes are brimmed with tears now as she cracks open the door in her mind that holds back her burning fear. “He won’t let me, Klaus. I’m terrified. When I dream, I feel like I’m back in my cell again. I feel trapped… It’s better if I stay awake.”

            Knowing that there is only one way she will ever feel safe sleeping, Klaus grabs for one of her soft hands. He then gingerly guides her to back to her bed where he draws the covers back and gestures for her to climb in. Soon after, he follows and pulls her warm comforter over both of them. She stares at him with drawn eyebrows as she tries to understand what he’s doing.

            “Then I will stay with you until such a time you can dream in peace,” he says securely. He won’t be able to sleep as it is knowing that she is suffering. He has to do this not only for her, but for himself as well. “Even the oldest vampires need rest.”

            Elizabeth blinks a couple of times, frowning slightly. She remembers when he did this for her on her first night back, but now he’s making it sound like a permanent thing. “Klaus, I can’t ask you to do this for me. Don’t you want to sleep in your own room?”

            “For five-hundred years, I have watched over you and you think I care more about my room than your wellbeing?” He asks, a touch of dark humor in his voice.

            “You’re the Mad Hybrid, Klaus,” she reminds him. “I’d be worried if you cared more about me than your bed.”

            Frowning, Klaus shakes his head in disagreement. “As mad as I may be, I know when you’re suffering and when you need help.”

            “Klaus Mikaelson, willing giving out help,” she teases lightly.

            “I will always make an exception for you.”

            “Careful,” she warns. “If you keep talking, I may learn you do actually have a heart somewhere in that chest of yours.”

            Although he smiles softly, Klaus says nothing more of the matter. He has indeed shown Elizabeth gentler sides to himself that he wouldn’t dare to ever expose to anyone else. It is true that, at the end of every day, she is who he thinks about before closing his eyes. For centuries he has held her at arm’s length, afraid of what may happen should she get too close. She is one of his greatest weaknesses. If she ever desired to, she could destroy him and take away everything he loves and somehow, that only makes him love her more. Nevertheless, he has grown to trust her with everything in his life and as they share her bed now, he swallows back his emotions and puts up the all too familiar wall that she has met many times before in her long life.

            “Sleep now, Elizabeth,” he whispers. “Tomorrow is a new day.”

            She feels as if she had been starring at the blinking line in the Google search bar for hours and, honestly, by now she probably has. Elijah leans his head back against the armchair and he makes a pained face as his neck has grown tired from being bent to look at the pages of a book. All afternoon, they have been trying to piece together a solid timeline for Charles Richardson and although they have been working their hardest, they are still coming up with nothing useful. Ultimately, all of their research and gathered information comes around to one disturbing truth. Whether she wants to believe it or not, Charles has been in her life for a disturbingly long time.

            "Within the last thirty or forty years, there must have been a time in which the two of you crossed paths," Elijah says as he looks back down at the book in his hands. "Somewhere, he decided to prey upon you."

            Elizabeth closes the lid to her laptop, giving up on internet research for now. Nathan gave them as much information as he could on Charles, as he is his son, but even that went so far. Charles has been careful about leaving behind footprints and digging up his past will not be as easy as they would all like it to be. "And you plan on finding that date how?" She asks tiredly. "Unless we get his hands on his journals, we will never know all of the facts. All of this is just circumstantial."

            Elijah makes a face at the simple revelation, his curiosity bubbling inside of him. "Journals?"

            "Charles documents everything he does in his journals as we all do to keep track of our lives,” she explains. “I picked up on it my third-year in. Everything he has ever done to me is written somewhere.”

            Rebekah uncrosses her legs from where she sits on the couch and she tosses her notebook off to the side, fatigued from writing so much. "Why can't we just bust down his door and snap his neck already?" She asks irritably.

            "Because now we have to worry about Lyanna," Elizabeth reminds her, her eyes darting over to the stack of notes she has compiled on her sister. "We don't know what she is up to or for how long she has been working with Charles. Going after him now will get someone killed."

            Elijah stands from the armchair and he puts his stack of books onto the coffee table, a hand moving to rub his tired neck. "If this Lyanna is still the Lyanna that put a dagger into my chest and killed children without hesitation, then we have to be careful. We have no idea what kind of power she possesses, if she has any at all."

            Rebekah makes an annoyed face and Elizabeth looks to Elijah, sadness in her eyes. She recalls perfectly just how in love Lyanna and Elijah had been once upon a time. It would not have surprised her in the slightest had to two of them gotten married and maybe all Lyanna was to Elijah was something to pass the time, but she knows her sister loved him more than anything in the world. Cutting her train of thoughts short, a blonde woman carrying a thick book in her arms walks into the study. Her cheeks are a little red from a light sunburn and she looks to a be little exhausted, but she walks with determination nonetheless.

            "I'm back for less than ten hours and I've already had Klaus busting down my door," the woman says heatedly. "It's good to see all of you."

            Rebekah smiles, her mood shifting entirely. The thoughts of boredom and annoyance have completely left her. "How was your vacation with Keelin?"

            "It was great except for the million texts from our brother," Freya says happily. "Keelin enjoyed herself. It was good to get out of here for a little while."

            Freya's eyes shift over to Elizabeth, who looks back at her with curious eyes. After spending hours going through pictures and paintings in the Mikaelson storage, Freya can recognize those brown eyes anywhere. Walking over to the desk, she smiles and extends her hand out.

            "You must be Elizabeth," Freya says kindly. "I'm Freya, the older sister. It's good to finally meet you."

            Elizabeth gapes slightly and shakes Freya’s hand, pleased to have finally met her. Freya had only just come back to the Mikaelsons’ life when Elizabeth disappeared and they never officially met. “Rebekah told me all about you. You’re a witch, right?”

            Elijah smiles, rising from the armchair he had previously been sitting in. “And a rather good one if I don’t say so myself,” he compliments. “Freya, have you found anything?”

            Freya sets the large, worn book on the desk and rests her hand atop it. “I have gone through every spell in her grimoire and nothing in it suggests prolonged life. There is not a single trace of dark magic on these pages.” Elizabeth draws her eyebrows together and she takes another look at the book. The grimoire is leather-bound, the spine wearing from centuries of use. On the cover is a gold-encrusted family crest that has faded over time. The crest bears a deer, a mountain lion, and the feather from an eagle.

            “This is Lyanna’s grimoire,” she mutters.

            Freya looks up, a look of apology on her face. “I’m sorry, I should have asked before I went looking through it,” she apologizes. “Klaus had it stored in his hoard of things and I thought it could shed some light on this mystery. Unfortunately, I can’t find anything.”

“Klaus told me he burned her grimoire,” Elizabeth then says. “This shouldn’t be here.”

            Elijah walks up to the desk, his hands in his pockets. “It appears my brother knows more secrets than he is letting on. I was there when he burned it.”

            Elizbeth stands from the edge of the desk, running a hand anxiously through her hair. “Putting Klaus’ inability to tell me the truth aside for a moment,” she says, “there should be some trace of dark magic in that book. My sister had tapped into magic that never should have been touched.”

            “What kind of magic?” Freya asks. “Maybe I can dig something up I know more about her spells.”

            “Sacrificial, blood magic, voodoo, expression was one of her favorites. She experimented with it all and liked anything that gave her more power,” Elizabeth says. “My sister became obsessed and eventually she found a kind of magic that changed her. It was like a sickness. She was up to something, but none of us ever uncovered the truth. She had to be stopped before she could wipe out the entire town.”

            Freya sighs and looks to the clock hanging from the wall. “If your sister was as dark as you say, then somebody must know something about her. Especially if she has been alive all this time. I’ll go talk to some witches I know and see what I can dig up. I’ll figure it out.” 

            Leaving behind the grimoire, Frey leaves the room in a hurry. Elizabeth looks at the worn book and she brushes her fingers along the spine, wondering why Klaus would lie to her about destroying it.

            “Something doesn’t make sense,” Elijah huffs. “Your sister practiced evil magic. She used it on all of us at one point or another. There should be documentation of it somewhere. Another grimoire, perhaps.”

            Picking up the book, Elizabeth presses her lips together in a thin line. “I’m going to go find Klaus and ask him some questions. I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

            Holding the book close to her chest almost as if she is afraid of losing track of it, Elizabeth leaves the study. Crossing her path, a vaguely familiar face walks by and she stops abruptly with a raised eyebrow. The woman stops too and she turns, a curious smile on her face. Unsure if what she is seeing is real, the woman takes a step closer to get a better look at her face. She has her hair pinned up high and she wears a baby blue t-shirt, a color that both suits her nicely and brings out her eyes.

            “Elizabeth Walker… I heard you were back in New Orleans,” the woman says cheerfully. “I’m Camille, but please feel free to call me Cami. I doubt Klaus has mentioned me. I’ve kind of been his therapist for a long time now.”

            The name rings some bells in her mind. Although they never officially met, she remembers seeing Camille around the compound and at the bar. A lot of time has passed since those days and by now Camille should be much older, only she has not aged a single day. Frowning, she turns her head slightly to the side. Camille was the brave bartender, the one that fought against Klaus’ compulsion and the one who did whatever she could to protect those around her. If she is not mistaken, this is also the woman Rebekah has insisted she go speak to about her trauma.

            “Are you a…” She pauses, unsure of how to ask. It always feels a bit rude to ask a young vampire if they’ve been turned. Most are often bitter after they’ve transitioned and find the topic of their death to be a bit traumatic.

            Camille laughs anxiously, nodding her head to the unspoken question. “A vampire? Yes. I drew the short stick,” she explains. “I guess that’s what I get for hanging around the Mikaelsons. I died the day after you disappeared. It was a stupid accident. I was lucky Rebekah was with me. She fed me her blood before I bit the dust and I woke up in transition.”

            Elizabeth gives her a sympathetic look. Memories of Camille are starting to come back to her now. Her uncle was Father Kieran… and she hated vampires. She wonders briefly how Camille handled the transition.  

            “I’m sorry to hear that,” Elizabeth says.

            Camille shrugs her shoulders, no longer bothered by what she is. “I hated it at first, but Rebekah was kind and helped me adjust. I even took some time to go visit Caroline Forbes for help,” she replies happily. “You, uh… You look like you’re on your way somewhere. I shouldn’t hold you up.”

            “I’d be more than happy to talk more with you soon. But, I’m kinda looking for Klaus. Do you know where he is?” She questions.

            Camille points down the hall towards the room Klaus uses as his studio. “I just finished a session with him. He should still be in there. I’d be careful, though. He’s a bit upset. We talked about a lot of heavy stuff today.”

            After a kind nod, Elizabeth turns on her heel and walks down the hallway to the room Klaus has claimed as his studio (he had to adopt one as there was simply not enough space in his bedroom). She stares at the door, taking the time to decide how she should approach him. Thanks to Camille's warning, she now knows he's in a bad mood – which would explain why she has hardly seen him today – and she knows how he gets when he's in these moods. Deciding to take it easy, she slips into the study and walks promptly up to his desk where he sits. The hybrid pays no attention to her as he continues to scribble at his desk, too consumed in his work to care about her presence. Although she is tempted to slam the book down, she slides the grimoire onto the desk nicely. As expected, he pays no mind to it or her.

            "You told me you burned this," she says pointedly and he can tell by her tone that is upset with him.

            It would seem that the amount of woman who is upset with him today are endless. First Hayley, then Hope... then Freya... then Elizabeth. It never ends. Klaus sets his pencil down and he looks at the grimoire, his eyes narrowing. "You weren’t supposed to find this."

            Elizabeth scoffs and she crosses her arms over her chest defensively. "Clearly," she agrees. "Is there anything else regarding Lyanna that you happen to be hiding from me today?"

            He knows he has no reason to be upset with her, but her tone is not helping his mood. He almost unwillingly meets her burning gaze, but he shows her no fear. He was never been nor will he ever be intimidated by someone who possesses less power than does. "You best watch how you are speaking to me," he warns her darkly.

            "You're threatening me, now?" She asks, hurt in her strong voice. Sighing, she takes a moment to remind herself that he is in a bad mood. He always says things he doesn't mean when he is upset. "You owe me answers. Why did you lie about burning Lyanna's grimoire? We were supposed to destroy everything she owned in case anyone found her spells and decided to pick up her work."

            Standing furiously from his desk as he wishes to be left alone, Klaus towers over her in a hostile manner. "I owe you nothing. If you want answers, then find them somewhere else."

            Refusing to let him scare her, Elizabeth stands tall. She has matched his anger before and she's not afraid to do it again. "I don't know what you and Cami talked about today that has you acting like such a cold bastard, but there are bigger and more important things to worry about, Klaus."

            The immediate regret that she feels cannot be described in words. It hits her in the guy, making her stomach twist into uncomfortable knots. It would see that she too has a habit of saying things she doesn't mean in the midst of her anger. Widening her eyes, she takes a half step back and if she could take everything she has said back, she would. Klaus looks up from his work and he looks to her differently now. There is no more anger now, only hurt.

            "A bastard," he contemplates. "Is that what I am to you?"

            Elizabeth shakes her head and although she would like to try, she knows nothing she can say will make it better right now. The only thing that will fix it is space away from each other. "You know damn well what you mean to me, Klaus," she quietly. "You are withholding information about my sister who is very much alive against what we all thought. Should you find it in your heart to tell me what you know, I'll listen to you."

            Klaus does not look at her again. Hastily picking up the grimoire from the desk, she turns to leave and is cut off by Elijah at the doorway. He can sense the tension in the room and as he looks on to Klaus, he can see just how off-put his brother is. He then looks to Elizabeth, who wears a face of regret. She said something that cannot be taken back and now she will have to deal with it.

            "I'd be careful with him," she warns. "He seems to be in a particularly nasty mood today."

            "Sod off," Klaus snaps from behind. 

            Elijah nods and walks into the room as Elizabeth takes off down the hallway. She exhales slowly and looks down at the book as she walks, trying to piece the puzzle together in her mind. Whatever business Lyanna has with Charles, it cannot be and simply is not good. Entering her bedroom, she turns directly to her bookshelf that stands wide and three feet taller than she is. Hesitantly, she stores Lyanna’s grimoire in the only open spot that is left on the middle shelf.

            “Elizabeth,” a man says from behind.

            Alarmed to hear a voice, Elizabeth is quick to turn around in a blur. Her fangs drop and the blood rushes to her eyes as she prepares to attack, anticipation burning in her palms. Josh looks at her with raised hands, panic in his eyes.

            “Easy!” He says loudly in a rush. “I’m not here to kill you!”

            Surprised, Elizabeth hides her face and walks towards her friend who had previously been sitting on the edge of her bed. “Josh, what the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you text me back yesterday?”

            “Nathan sent me a bunch of stuff and I think I stumbled on something important. Something about Lyanna,” he explains hurriedly. He scratches the back of his head anxiously, predicting exactly how this conversation is going to blow over.

            “The _last_ thing I want to talk about is Lyanna,” she says irritably.

            Josh nods. “I know, but something is seriously wrong,” he explains. “Marcel has been doing a lot of digging and we both kind of realized something at the same time.”

            Elizabeth stares at him, waiting to uncover the big truth of the moment. “And?”

            “When was the last time anyone saw Kol?” Josh asks.

            Taken aback, Elizabeth flinches slightly. _Kol Mikaelson_. Up until this moment, she had no idea he was even alive. “Last time I knew anything about Kol, he wasn’t around.”

            Josh sighs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Long story short, he’s alive and he married Davina. They’ve kinda been living on their own, doing their own thing until recently. He and Davina got into a pretty nasty argument and he hasn’t been seen since. She’s worried. It’s been weeks and normally, he would have called her by now or come home.”

            Exhaling slowly, Elizabeth turns to the family portrait on her desk. Kol is there off to the left with Rebekah in his lap. She feels bad for not thinking of Kol or even asking about him up until now, but her life has been so full of craziness that it has been damn near impossible for her to find time to catch up. How the hell Kol is alive after being killed years ago leaves her confused, but that’s the last thing on her mind at the moment. He’s alive and he’s missing.

            “Let me guess… You think Kol is working with Lyanna,” she states dryly.

            Josh shakes his head, rejecting the thought. “Not so much. Kol is a great guy… or he’s a great guy to Davina, at least. He wouldn’t work with the enemy. I think, if he is where I think he is, he might be spelled or under some kind of mind control. And if that’s true, we’re all in danger. You in particular.”

            The concept is unsettling to her. If Josh is correct, then Lyanna has an Original on her side that is open to doing her bidding. Any one of them could be put on the chopping block because of it. Although she hasn’t thought much about him lately, she is definitely thinking about him now. It’s time to track down Kol Mikaelson and bring him home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to get really messy. I'm excited for you all to see what's going to unfold. 
> 
> Also, there will be a sequel to this story. I pounded out a pretty solid outline for it and as it stands right now, it is significantly darker than this. This story is mostly set up for Elizabeth's character and the second story will cover a lot more ground with a lot more unexpected deaths. I'll post more about it as this story wraps up!
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos. This week has been insane and I'm not always able to catch everything when reading through a chapter before posting :)


	11. Linked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an attempt to relax goes horribly wrong, Elizabeth's mind becomes dangerous to herself and later, she and Hayley finally have a talk.

Breathing in as deeply as her lungs will allow, she lowers herself gently into the tub.

            The water wraps around her bare body like a blanket, holding her in a warm embrace. Her hair is pulled up high and not a trace of makeup can be found on her troubled face. As she relaxes against the back of the tub, she feels the corners of her mouth lifting upwards ever so slightly. From the bubbles that soothe into her skin, she can smell faint traces of lavender and rose. She takes a moment to admire how calm the scent makes her feel and it occurs to her that she needed to do this. Taking in another much-needed deep breath, she permits herself to drop her worries and her fears. She will not worry about the threats against her life, she will not worry about the lives of those she loves the most in this world. In these short moments, she can be free.

            Reaching, she grabs the wine glass that sits on the edge of the tub and she brings it to her lips, sipping it slowly. The now less than full bottle of wine sits on the floor just outside of the tub and she has full intentions of drinking her way through the rest of it tonight. She could care less that she stole it from Klaus’ secret stash of wines and bourbons. Eventually, he will notice what she took and when he does, she will handle it just as she has with everything else thus far in her life. One missing bottle of wine surely won’t kill him and, in the meantime, she intends to use it to relax for once. Up until now, she is fairly certain she has not taken a moment to relax since the early 2000s.

            Sighing, she closes her eyes as she realizes there will only be one thing to worry about tonight. Despite what she would prefer, she cannot escape her hatred for how tense things have been between her and Klaus lately. It’s apparent now more than ever how they feel about each other, she knows that. It is, undoubtedly, clear what they want, what _she_ wants, but they keep getting hung up on the same old issues. Safety, fear, distrust in their own ability to love each other without worry they may lose each other one day. She has seen it all before and she understands why it has to be so complicated when the life they live is as tragic as it is. You never quite know when you say goodbye to someone if it will be the last time.

            Nevertheless, she has always wanted one thing in her long life. To love him. And yet, here they are. Stuck… Lost. She’s not sure how much longer she can keep putting herself through this, but she knows with every fiber of her being that she cannot give up on him. It would break her to walk away from him and to never look back as if he had meant nothing to her. She needs him just as much as he needs her. As dark and twisted as it may be, she needs his temper and his attitude because without it, she wouldn’t be able to give him her kindness or innocence. Like a dysfunctional puzzle, they fit together in the best of ways. When one pushes, the other pulls and when one breaks, the other is there to pick up the pieces. As broken and damaged as they are, she knows in her gut that they complete each other.

            Taking in another deep breath, Elizabeth returns the wine glass to the edge of the tub. Slowly, she closes her eyes and sinks below the surface of the water. The heat burns her skin for a brief moment, turning into a numbing pleasure not a second later. She rests there for a long while, unwilling to come back up to the surface because she knows the second that she does, her own tortured reality would settle back in. Unbeknownst to her, by staying beneath the water, she manages to trigger something unpleasant that had been buried deep in the back of her subconscious until now. The water… unable to _breathe._ Choking. He is in her mind now. She sees Charles’ smiling at her. Snapping her eyes open, ignoring how the bubbles burn them, she finds that she cannot rise above the water. He stands above the tub now as if he has been there the entire time and he grins, his blue eyes glistening with sinister intent.

            Fighting, she shakes her head and tries to find logical reason within herself. _He cannot be here. He is not here. He cannot hurt you._ When she closes her eyes, he is there. When she opens her eyes, he is looking down on her. Her lungs are on fire, begging for air. Charles is burned into her mind and he will not leave her alone. Clawing at the tub, she knocks the wine glass into the water. As the water turns red, she kicks and trashes with every ounce of strength she can muster. Her head aches, her throat burns.

            “ _You thought you could escape me, Lizzie?_ ” He asks her, voice muffled by the water.

            She cannot pick apart reality from nightmare. Both worlds have merged into one. Charles reaches into the water and he clasps his hand around her throat, pushing her further and further down into the water until she sees nothing. Until she can feel nothing but a coldness. She screams and screams, fighting against his hold. Her lungs are burning, screaming at her. Her eyes burn as she sobs. The wine glass shatters and she desperately reaches for a shard, looking for anything to bring her back into the reality she knows is real. The pieces float away from her and she only just barely manages to secure a piece in between her fingers. Desperately, she plunges the shard deeply into her thigh and she screams, gasping for the air that is not there. All she can feel is the cold water.

            Suddenly, as she oozes a concerning amount of blood, she is being pulled completely out of the water. She coughs and dry heaves as water is expelled from her lungs, her hands clutching onto the body of her rescuer. Her vision is blurred from her near-drowning and as more and more water spills from her mouth, she realizes she is soaking the man’s shirt. She presses her palm against his chest and she cries out, unable to understand what is happening.

            “Elizabeth, can you hear me?” He asks seriously.

            Gasping heavily as if she had forgotten how to breathe, Elizabeth angles her head and sees what she believes to be Klaus. Unable to answer, she falls against him and he pulls her from the tub entirely. He grabs for one of her towels and he wraps her up securely, making sure she is covered. Moving her to the floor, he examines the glass shard that protrudes from her thigh. It’s deeply embedded into her skin, probably scrapping against her bone. She stabbed herself. Why did she stab herself?

            “Klaus…” she breathes weakly, barely conscious in the war zone her mind has become. What is real? What is a dream?

            “Brother, get Freya,” Klaus commands and Elizabeth finds herself becoming confused as she cannot see anyone else in her bathroom.

            Incapable of holding herself up any longer, she droops off to the side and Klaus is quick to catch her, forcing her to sit upwards with her back against the tub. He grabs the side of her face and tries to get her to look at him, but she can barely see clearly. Her pupils are dilated, her vision is blurred and spotted with black dots.

            “Elizabeth, you need to stay with me,” he says strictly and she gets the sense that she does not have much say in the matter.

            She smiles weakly, blood on her bottom lip from where she bit herself too hard. “He was here…” she whispers, voice broken.

            Freya rushes into the room with Elijah hot on her trail and she drops to her knees, alarmed by the glass in her leg. “What the hell happened to her?”

            “I don’t know,” Klaus says hurriedly. The worry in his voice does not go unnoticed. “I heard her screaming and when I came to check on her, I found her thrashing in the tub. She stabbed herself with a broken wine glass.”

            “Freya, look at the handprint on her throat,” Elijah urges, dropping down to his knee so he can turn Elizabeth’s head upwards to expose the burn mark. “What caused this?”

Freya shakes her head, no longer able to think fast enough. Whatever has happened to her is dark. “Pull the glass from her leg and get her on the bed. She stabbed herself because she was trying to bring herself back. This is a spell.”

            Moving fast, Klaus picks Elizabeth up from the ground and he is beside her bed within the next second. Carefully, he moves the towel over and grasps the shard of glass, struggling to get a good grip on it. In a single movement, he rips it from her and blood spills onto her once-white sheets. Elizabeth blinks rapidly, looking around her room to try and make sense of her surroundings. In the corner of her room, she sees him again and she gasps, lifting a shaking hand to point to him. He’s watching her. Sobbing, she twists and turns, but she cannot think.

            “H-He’s here… He’s r-right there,” she whimpers, trying to make the others listen to her. “H-He’s right there. Please.”

            “Klaus, I need you to hold her down,” Freya demands, holding her hands just above Elizabeth’s writhing body.

            With force, Klaus pushes down on Elizabeth’s shoulders and she screams, kicking her legs. Elijah grasps her ankles and forces them down against the mattress, his strength applied. Elizabeth fights them with as much strength as she can muster, her fangs bared. She pushes against their hold as she watches as Charles looks upon her with a fond and wicked smile.

            " _I am everywhere, Lizzie,_ " he reminds her. " _You cannot hide from me. I will always find you. And now I will always be with you. I will listen to every thought and I will always know where you are. No more hiding._ "

            Elizabeth sobs heavily and with a new-found strength she has never had before, she manages to get an arm free. Moving faster than the eye can see, she reaches upwards and clasps her hand around Klaus’ throat. The hybrid chokes and his eyes widen with shock, finding it rather difficult to break free of her hold. She cannot be stronger than he is. It’s not possible.

            “Freya!” He yells, fiercely pulling against Elizabeth’s iron grip.

            “I’m working as fast as I can,” Freya snaps harshly. “This is very dark magic. This kind of thing usually requires sacrificial work.”

            Elijah curiously looks over his shoulder to the corner of the room where Elizabeth keeps her eyes fixed, trying to see what she sees. There’s absolutely nothing there besides her full bookshelf, but she is deeply terrified. He recognizes the fear in her crying eyes, having seen it before so many times on his own.

            “She’s seeing Charles,” he concludes. “Can he be here, Freya?”

            Freya pauses her Latin incantations long enough to form an answer that makes sense. She knows what is happening here, but she is finding it rather difficult to find the right words to explain it. “I think he’s linking himself to her mind. He’s a real as he wants himself to be.”

            “Can you… break the link?” Klaus demands angrily through a strained voice, doing his best to speak through the claws that now plunge into his throat. Blood pours down the front of his once white shirt and he looks down at Elizabeth pleadingly as he would rather not have his throat torn out.

            “I’m not sure…” Freya breathes shakily.

            Elizabeth does her best to listen to the people speaking around her, but she is unable to understand a single word they are saying. Nothing makes sense and she hardly feels like she is awake. In fact, it feels like she is somewhere else entirely. Furiously, she squeezes her hand tighter and Klaus yells, threatening to break her arm if she doesn’t let go of him. Her mind is at war with itself. Charles steps away from the corner of the room and he walks towards her, pulling his hands free from his pockets. He climbs on top of her bed and touches both of her ankles, leaving behind his handprints for the others to see. He’s taunting them. She screams and thrashes against the strong hold of her family, trying to get away from him.

            Rebekah appears in the doorway, called by the violent screaming. She watches the scene before her and it terrifies her. Elizabeth is about to tear out Klaus’ throat, Elijah is holding her legs down… it doesn’t make sense. “What the bloody hell is happening in here?” She asks as she runs to the edge of the bed. “What has happened to her?”

            Elijah looks away from the makes on Elizabeth’s ankles, finding his little sister’s worried eyes. “She’s in some kind of trance. Charles has a hold on her mind.”

            “This is the attachment process,” Freya says. “We’re too late. I won’t be able to stop it now. All I can do is make it easier on her.”

            Charles reaches forward and squeezes his hand firmly around Elizabeth’s throat as she chokes. She takes several short and quick labored breaths, unable to fight it anymore. Pulling her fingers from Klaus’ throat, her arm falls limply and all she can feel is the tears that streak down her face. She is paralyzed, incapable of fighting anymore. Too tired to resist him, her body gives up and as Charles grins triumphantly, she falls deeply into unconsciousness. The last thing she sees is Klaus’ terrified eyes.

            The first thing she hears when she awakens is the soft chirping of a bird just outside of her window. She runs her fingertips over her sheets, trying to remember what happened to her the night before. She feels tired, her muscles are exhausted. Breathing in deeply, she stirs around and bumps her hand into something hard. Opening her tired eyes, she finds Klaus sitting on the edge of her bed. He stares out the window, not paying much attention to her. Slowly, she sits up and brings a hand to her throat where she recalls being strangled. _Charles._

            “Klaus…” she croaks.

            The hybrid turns in his place, pleased to finally hear her voice. “You had quite the night,” he says, but she can hear the anger behind his kindness. He blames himself for what happened.

            She looks down at her body, frowning just slightly. There is blood on her sheets and her hair is a mess, evidence of the terrors from the night before.

            “What happened to me?” She asks and she’s not entirely sure if she wants to hear the answer.

            Klaus twists his body, tucking one leg beneath the other. “I heard your screams and when I came to get you, you were drowning in your bathtub. I pulled you out, but you were bleeding from where you had stabbed yourself. I had Elijah get Freya and she said that Charles has linked himself to your mind. Last night was the attachment process. It was rather painful for both of us. You nearly tore out my throat.”

Elizabeth swallows uncomfortably, her throat dry. "Can... Can the link be broken?" She asks wearily. Slowly, the events of last night are coming back to her and it makes her skin crawl.

            Klaus reaches out to her and he gently pushes her hair back, longing to see her face. "Freya did what she could last night, but severing the link would take a considerable amount of power," he admits honestly. "Charles has deeply rooted himself in your precious mind. He will see all of your thoughts and he will always know where you are."

            She does not react in the way she expected she would. Instead of shaking with fear or crying, she takes a deep breath and holds Klaus’ gaze. Maybe after everything, she has finally snapped. She knows she is afraid of what has happened to her, but she will not let it control her this time. She will own this and move on from it.

“What can we do about it, then?”

            "Freya is working on making something that will act as a blockade," he explains. "Until such a time we can stop him from invading your mind, we must watch over you. You almost died last night and you are a danger to yourself."

            "None of this should be happening," she says as she looks down at her lap. "I don't understand why he's so fixated on me. I feel like there’s something I’m missing in all of this… Something so _fucking_ obvious."

            "Elizabeth Walker, you should know... You are a very special girl," Klaus says with a smile.

            Elizabeth looks up at him, matching his smile with one of her own. "Your flattery does not distract me from the issues at hand," she warns him playfully. "Does Freya know how he made the link?"

            Uncomfortably, Klaus stands and walks to the window as if being near her is too much for him. The anger within him burns hot and he’s so close to snapping. “The magic used to make this link was dark, something that would require sacrificial work which means our favorite little witch is in town.”

            Elizabeth hangs her head, her eyes closing briefly. "Lyanna," she whispers.

            Klaus looks over his shoulder to nod, a bleak expression on his face. "And if she was able to establish a link between you and Charles, then she is close."

            Climbing out of her bed, Elizabeth stands unsteadily and looks down at the clothes she wears. She furrows her eyebrows with a slightly disturbing realization. "Does that mean you and Elijah saw me naked?" She asks, her voice cracking.

            Klaus grins wide, but he does not turn around to show her. "It was not the first time I have laid eyes upon you, love," he reminds her cheekily.

            Blushing a little, Elizabeth shakes her mind of the thought and walks to her bookshelf for Lyanna's grimoire. "You never told me why you lied to me about this."

            Klaus turns on his heel and looks at the book. He had hoped he would never see it again. "I did not lie to you, Elizabeth," he confesses. "I did burn the book, but the book simply did not want to be burned. It's spelled. I stored it away and never thought twice about it."

            A little annoyed, Elizabeth turns back to Klaus as she rests her hand onto the cover. “And you didn’t tell me that… why?”

            Klaus shrugs his shoulders. He has no real reason and he knows it. “I wasn’t particularly in a sharing mood yesterday.”

            Having a little self-control, Elizabeth swallows her annoyance and stores it for later. She then replaces it with remorse and she allows the regret she feels to resurface. “I’m sorry for calling you a bastard. I never should have said that,” she says apologetically.

            “No need to apologize, sweetheart,” he replies simply. “I was, after all, being a bastard, I suppose.” 

            Elizabeth sighs, not entirely convinced, and she flips open to the first page of the grimoire. "Lyanna was thorough, why didn't you just tell me the book couldn't be burned when you found out?"

            "You were grieving your sister at the time. I didn't want to burden you with more worry," he says with a shrug.

            Putting the book back on the shelf, Elizabeth sighs. In the mirror in her bathroom, she catches sight of her reflection and her hair truly is a mess. "I was burdened with much more than my sister's death that night, Niklaus."

            Recalling the memory, Klaus crosses his arms and leans against the windowpane. "And not a day goes by where I do not wish I had done it. You would have been safer," he says.

            Elizabeth scoffs and gestures between the two of them. "I would have been lost without this," she corrects. She would rather be damned to hell then be compelled to forget.

            “I should have killed you the day I met you,” he declares coldly. “Instead, I let you live, I let you come with us, and I grew attached.”

            Frustrated by his constant need to throw these things into her face, Elizabeth rests her hands upon her hips and glares back at him. “So, why not just do it now then?” She inquires, playing devil’s advocate. “If you’re so hell-bent on the regret of not killing me, then why not save yourself from all of the trouble?”

            Klaus blinks, caught off guard by the question. He had not expected her to throw his words back at his face. “You really think I am capable of killing you?”

            “You are capable of many things, Niklaus. I have watched you tear the hearts out of your closest friends. I have watched you stick daggers into our sibling’s chests,” she points out. “Killing the woman who you love would not be so beneath you. Should it come down to it, I believe you would be capable of anything.”

            The words tasted sour on her tongue. She knows she is being cold and cruel with her words, but it feels good to throw these things back at him after holding onto her thoughts for so long. Klaus looks to her, a deep pain in his eyes. She speaks the truth and yet he feels so repulsed to hear it. Knowing that she cannot leave this on such a bad note, Elizabeth reaches out to him and gently touches his hand.

            “I am alive and I am a part of this family. For five hundred years we have had this same argument over and over again,” she says. “It is my decision to be here, one I will never regret, and it is _my_ decision to love you.”

            Klaus stares back at her, eyes conflicted. He looks as if he is struggling to say something, but then he vanishes as if he was never there. Elizabeth exhales slowly and for this one second, she lets her walls down. Squeezing her eyes shut, she breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. The stress from last night is still weighing down on her. Charles is in her mind and her relationship with Klaus is broken… Her sister is alive and is probably planning something dark… It’s all entirely too much.

            Opening her eyes, she takes in another deep breath and runs a hand through her knotted hair. She will get through this. If not for herself, then for those around her. She has to.

            She pauses briefly as a head rush overcomes her. Shakily, she grips the edge of the closest door frame, Hope’s door frame, and she breathes in deeply through her nose. Her entire body feels like it is trapped in an endless cycle of vertigo. Everything is moving in slow motion. Dropping a knee, she pants raggedly. She can hardly see through the cloud of blackness that surrounds her vision. Then, a powerful ricocheting pain squeezes her brain and she cries out. Emerging from her room, Hope stares down at Elizabeth with confusion and fear.

            “Aunt Elizabeth?” She asks slowly.

            When Elizabeth does not respond, Hope reaches out and rests her hands on either side of Elizabeth’s head. Soon, the pain and visions of Charles fade away until there is nothing left. She almost feels normal. Shaking, Elizabeth looks up at the young Mikaelson with her lips parted.

            “…Hope,” she breathes. “H-How did you…?”

            Smiling, Hope kneels down on the floor. “Aunt Freya has been helping me learn magic,” she explains. “Does your head feel better?”

            Smiling slightly, Elizabeth nods. “Yes, thank you.”

            “I heard you screaming last night,” Hope then says as she drops her hands. “I know something bad happened to you and I know something bad is coming for all of us.”

            Grimly, Elizabeth can only nod her head. It would be pointless to lie to the young teen. Her father and mother are some of the most intelligent people she knows. Scooping Hope off the floor, she plops down onto her bed and leans up against the headboard. Hope reaches for her sketchbook and resumes working on a drawing, a sketch of her father.

            “I want to help,” Hope says slowly.

            “I don’t think your parents would like that very much.”

            Frustrated, Hope pauses her work again and points with her pencil. “I’m thirteen years old. I’m old enough to help. You’re my family too. I’m not a baby anymore.”

            Touched, Elizabeth smiles slightly. However, she cannot agree. “You were almost two when I saw you last. And it’s true, you’re not a baby anymore, but… Hope, the people coming for us…” She pauses, unable to think of a way to phrase her thoughts in a way for Hope to understand.

            “I know Charles tortured you and I know Lyanna was an evil witch. I also know that she was your sister and my dad killed her a long time ago because she got out of control. I know that Charles and Lyanna are bad people and I know they will try to kill me,” Hope says. “I’ve been listening in on uncle Elijah and my dad. I really want to help.”

            Crossing her legs, Elizabeth leans forward and tucks some of Hope’s hair behind her ear. “Your father won’t like it.”

            “Well… _Tough_. I’m going to help protect you and my family,” she declares. “It’s my fight too.”  

            The braveness in her voice surprises Elizabeth, but her strength is to be expected. She’s a fighter, just like her parents. Sighing, she stares at Hope lovingly and rests both of her hands on her shoulders. Hope frowns, already predicting what is going to come out of her mouth.

            “Everybody in this house wants to keep you away from the fight, Hope. You have no idea what it would do to any of us should something happen to you, your parents most of all. We all love you so much,” Elizabeth explains. “You can help us by keeping yourself safe.”

            “But what if you need me?” Hope pries. She’s looking for any possible loophole.

            Elizabeth opens her mouth to speak, but is promptly cut off by someone else entering the room. Hayley smiles at the sight of them on her daughter’s bed, her arms crossed over her chest.

            “She’s trying to get you to let her help, isn’t she?” Hayley asks knowingly.

            “Yes. She’s being very persistent about it,” Elizabeth confirms.

            Raising an eyebrow, Hayley turns to her daughter and gives a pointed expression. “We already talked about this, Hope. It’s not safe for you.”

            Frustrated now that two people are against her, Hope gathers her sketch pad and pencil and runs out of the room. Hayley sighs, too tired to chase after her. Elizabeth swings her legs off the bed and she unsteadily gets to her feet. She is still dizzy from the earlier incident.

            “I would assume the bullheadedness comes from Klaus?” She asks jokingly.

            Hayley laughs, nodding in agreement. “And the temper,” she adds on. “They gang up on me all the time.”

            Smiling, Elizabeth pushes her hair from her face. She’s not entirely sure what to say to Hayley. They were hardly friends before she disappeared, but she knows she is a crucial part of this family. Hell, they are all so important.

            “I don’t know how to get ahead of this stuff with Lyanna and Charles,” Elizabeth admits. That thought alone scares her deeply. “It’s bad enough I have Charles in my head now…”

            Hayley plops down on the edge of her daughter’s bed, making the left-over pencils roll into the folds on the comforter. “We’ll think of something. Elijah already booted me from the fight, saying that I need to protect Hope if they come for her.”

            Elizabeth smiles, looking down to the ground. “I have never seen Elijah love a woman as much as he loves you.”

            “He is a charmer when he wants to be,” Hayley laughs. “I just wish all of this could blow over. We all just got you back and it seems like we can’t catch a break to appreciate that. I can’t tell you what the guilt did to Elijah when we heard you’re alive.”

            “I don’t want him to think it was his fault. He did exactly what I would have wanted him to,” Elizabeth sighs. “He kept Klaus from running himself into the ground and he kept the family together.”

            Hayley nods her head, absentmindedly fidgeting with her fingers. “It was harder when you disappeared. There were so many fights… Between keeping Hope safe and everything that happened afterward, it’s hard to believe it all happened,” she recalls softly. “We lost a lot of people, some ended up as vampires… It would have been easier if we had you around to keep Klaus in check. You keep his head level and clear.”

            Plopping down on the bed, Elizabeth shakes her head. “Wanna know my secret?” She asks with a smile.

            Hayley raises an eyebrow, laughing almost. “There’s actually a trick to this?”

            Elizabeth smiles broadly. “I keep doggy treats in my pockets,” she giggles.

            Hayley snorts and playfully shoves Elizabeth, knocking her over. “Really funny. We’re making wolf jokes now?”

            Holding her hands up, Elizabeth continues to giggle. “Only at Klaus’ expense. I would never tease you,” she says almost seriously.

            For a little while longer, they sit on Hope’s bed talking about all of the things they have missed in each other’s lives. It was refreshing to have a normal conversation for once and as she walks through the hallways to go find Rebekah, Elizabeth does so feeling lighter than before. Even though Charles is in her head and her sister is lurking around, she feels stronger now. She only wishes she knew then just what it would cost her to put an end to the fight coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you probably won't enjoy chapter fourteen. I do something pretty mean there. 
> 
> Also, I know I have this tagged as a slow burn, I know Elizabeth and Klaus keep going back and forth, but I promise that will stop reaaaaallllyy soon! They just have a lot of shit in their way that needs to be worked through. 
> 
> Updates about the coming sequel for this story: 
> 
> I know there are still a BUNCH of chapters to come out for this story, but I wanted to let you know that this story and the sequel have two different plot lines. Everything that happens in this story will be wrapped up by the end, but if you end up enjoying this story and want to dive into something A LOT more darker and devastating, then you'll probably want to read the sequel once this story is fully published and I get it up. 
> 
> Right now, I'm looking at about 38 chapters for it, which might change later (still not sure). There is a lot that I wanted to do with Elizabeth that I couldn't get to in this story, so I thought a sequel would be the easiest solution for that. PLUS, it will feature most of the characters from TVD and will mostly take place in Mystic Falls. More information will come out later in a few chapters. :)
> 
> (There was also a lot of foreshadowing to a certain plot line that will be taking place in the sequel in this chapter)


	12. The Calm Before the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Rebekah and Elijah leave to go find Kol, Klaus decides that it would be best to go have a few drinks with Elizabeth, even though she's in a particularly grumpy mood and would rather stay out of the rain.

“Elijah, I don’t know what to tell you. Elizabeth is right,” Rebekah sighs. “Wherever Kol is, he’s in danger. He wouldn’t leave Davina like this.”

            “And we are supposed to trust Josh’s hunch, why?” He asks, a hand rubbing his chin.

            Elizabeth turns to face the bickering siblings, her eyes darting between them. “Because I trust Josh. He put a lot on the line to get me back home and he swears by it, Elijah,” she explains. “Either way, it would be good to bring Kol in at a time like this. He’s in danger out there. Who knows what Lyanna could do to him if she hasn’t done anything already? And if _Charles_ got his hands on an Original.”

            “You should mind what you think about, Elizabeth,” Elijah warns. “Charles could very well be watching your thoughts at all times. Best not to tip him off.”

            Trying to not let the comment irritate her as she has been extremely careful to monitor her thoughts, she folds her hands together and digs her fingernails into her palms. “My thoughts are perfectly managed,” she says through a clenching jaw. “Can we focus on the problem at hand?”

            Elijah casually puts his hands into his pockets, weighing the decision in his mind. “And are we sure Niklaus knows nothing of his whereabouts?”

            “I asked him this afternoon after he came back from the Bayou with Hayley,” Elizabeth says. “He has no idea where Kol is. Hasn’t heard from him for months.”

            “Then I will track down our brother and see what mess he has gotten himself into,” Elijah agrees. “If I am not back in a few days, assume that I am dead or worse.”

            Rebekah grimaces, immediately rejecting the plan. “Hang on,” she protests, “Kol is my brother too. In fact, I much prefer him over Nik. We should go get him together. We can protect ourselves better if we both go.”

            Elijah breathes in deeply. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that Rebekah will not have it any other way. “Then we will go search for our brother together,” he agrees. “We will leave shortly. I would like to say goodbye to Hayley.”

            Having nothing else to say on the mater as his mind is perfectly made up, Elijah flees the room in a blur of movement. Elizabeth turns to Rebekah, who seems broken up and stressed over the situation. It has not been sitting well with any of them that they allowed one of their own to slip through their fingers once again when it nearly cost Elizabeth her life.

            “He’ll be alright, Rebekah,” she says optimistically. “Kol is just as stubborn as all of us and I doubt he would fall into her hands without a fight. And, even though Marcel has kind of been on the outside of this fight, he’s doing what he thinks is right.”

            Rebekah scoffs, making a face of pure disappointment. “No, Marcel is just acting like the tyrant he was when he came back to New Orleans,” she corrects. “Only this time, he seems bloody incapable of making up his mind.”

            “He’s not the only one…” Elizabeth mumbles and she honestly never meant to say that out loud.

            Rebekah looks to her best friend, picking up on the double meaning of her words. “Trouble in paradise, I presume?”

            Laughing uncomfortably, Elizabeth turns her gaze out the window of the living room. Rain hammers down on the city, forcing the locals and tourists to take refuge inside of the nearest shops and bars.

            “You and I have very different definitions of paradise,” she says.

            “My brother may be a world-class pain in the ass, but he will come around eventually,” Rebekah reassures.

            “You mean after another five hundred years?” Elizabeth asks, a bemused expression on her tired face.

            Cutting the conversation painfully short, Elizabeth leaves the study and wanders down the hall until she comes out to the stairs that lead down to the main floor. At the entrance, Elijah stands with Hayley and he holds either side of her face in his hands as she looks up at him. The way she looks to him is warm, but it is full of worry.

            “I will be back within a few days at most,” Elijah promises her.

            Hayley anxiously fixes his tie, straightening it to his liking. “I’m going to hold you to that,” she says sternly even though she smiles. “No detours. You and Rebekah find Kol and you come home in one piece.”

            Smiling softly, Elijah leans down to kiss her lips gently and Elizabeth, as she casually watches against the second-floor banister, feels her heart swell with happiness. She is beyond glad that out of everyone who lives in this damned compound, it is Elijah who found someone to love until the end of time. One day, she would like to ask Hayley how it is she carried the child of Niklaus and fell in love with his brother, the proper and well-mannered Elijah Mikaelson. Turning around, she is abruptly confronted with the very man who has been on her mind all day and he looks down on her with that _stupid_ smile on his face. If she wasn’t so bothered by him and all that has been pulling them apart lately, she may have found that smile of his to be a little charming.

            “Avoiding me again, are we?” He asks her, eyebrows raised.

            She glares at the hybrid, deliberately stepping around him to get by as she says nothing in response. However, Klaus manages to grab ahold of her arm before she can even think about getting too far. He forces her to stop and with care, he turns her around to face him again. He looks at her for a moment, taking her in and the scowl frozen on her face. It would appear that she is, once again, upset with him.

            “Everybody seems to have their role to play,” Klaus continues on. “Elijah and my dear little sister are on a suicide mission to bring home our wayward brother, Freya is trying to crack the mysteries of your mind, Davina is looking for a weakness in your sister, Cami is helping Marcel keep the peace…”

            “Your mood swings are seriously going to give me whiplash, Klaus,” Elizabeth complains irritably. “Is there something you wanted from me?”

            “And who is having the mood swings now?” Klaus asks in return, enjoying this one chance he has to tease her. “I was wondering if you would join me in the city?”

            Annoyed, Elizabeth pulls her arm free and flattens her sweater. “Why on earth would I want to go outside right now, Klaus?” She asks, trying to understand him. “The weather is dreadful out there.”

            “Because I believe it would do you some good to get out of here for a couple of hours,” he explains honestly. “We are doing nothing of use sitting on our asses around here. It only seems right that we do _something_ of mild importance to help the cause.”

            Pushing him back slightly, fingertips lingering on his chest, she glares at him loathingly. “Then you can go join Elijah and Rebekah on their suicide mission to retrieve Kol while I stay _far_ away from you. Besides, nobody wants to be around me while I have Charles in my head.”

            Wearing a falsely annoyed face, Klaus pushes Elizabeth’s hair from her face and he leans in close, making sure that she cannot look away from his ever-searching eyes. “You really should watch how you speak t me,” he warns. “We’re going out, sweetheart. I won’t say it again. Either you come with me willingly or I throw you over my shoulder and drag you out myself. Whichever you prefer is perfectly fine with me.”

            After five-hundred years, she has learned that Klaus will only keep badgering her until she agrees with him. Rolling her eyes, she turns for the stairs and walks down them one step at a time. “What is so important that we _have_ to go outside right now? Surely you must see the weather. Nobody is on the streets.”

            “Let’s call it baiting the enemy,” he replies simply. “No harm, no foul, just a simple experiment to see where we stand in our own city.”

            Stopping abruptly, Elizabeth turns on the stairs to make sure she heard him right. “You’re trying to lure Charles and Lyanna out?” She demands. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

            “Love, I promise nobody will lay a single finger on your pretty head so long as I am around to protect you. They would be purely idiotic to try,” he reassures. “However, I am growing quite tired of not knowing how close our enemies are. If Charles wants you so badly, then I suspect he has been lurking just outside our doors.”

            Although she would much rather not do this, she sucks up her fear and walks promptly over to the entrance where the rain sounds much louder and the air is cool against her skin. She takes a deep breath, looking down to make sure her thoughts are well put together. Ever since Charles linked himself, she has been doing her damnedest not to think about anything important or of anything that could be used against her.  Klaus disappears for a single second before returning with two raincoats in hand and a single umbrella. He offers Elizabeth her coat and she takes it, snatching it from his hands with plenty of aggression. He squints his eyes at her attitude, deciding it’s best not to comment on it at this time.

            “Where to, Niklaus?” Elizabeth asks once they’re standing out in the rain. She honestly has no idea why she’s so hellbent on keeping up with her short-tempered attitude, but it has already taken root within her and she sees no real reason to drop it.

            Klaus looks down the street and shrugs his shoulders, securely holding the umbrella over both of their heads. “Rousseau's seems like it would be lovely at this hour and you look like you could use a drink,” he suggests.

            Without saying a word, Elizabeth marches forward and she doesn’t care when she walks out from underneath the umbrella. The rain has always been calming to her and she finds peace in it. Nevertheless, Klaus manages to catch up just fine.

            “You know, Rebekah would make a strong case that there is only enough room at the compound for one bad attitude,” Klaus points out, letting his curiosity win this particular inner battle. “Seeing as I usually claim that spot, I would like to know what has rubbed you the wrong way?”

            Smirking, Elizabeth shoots a glance over to the man beside her. He seems to genuinely care about her feelings and what has her so upset, but she knows what this is and she knows it will keep happening until one or both of them dies. One gets angry with the other, one will usually bug the other until it fades out, they’ll be on good terms, and then it will start all over again as if no progress has been made. That’s how they’ve always been and she knows well enough that it only continuously happens because they care so deeply about each other. Love, even. Casually, she hugs her jacket close to her body and continues to move forward. She won’t allow herself to get lost in his eyes right now. Doing that would simply make everything come undone.

            “Just this stupid hybrid I can’t seem to walk away from,” she finally answers.

            Klaus says nothing on the matter. Everything he has to say she has heard before. Speeding up a little, he grabs the door to Rousseau’s and he holds it open for her, taking note of how her cheeks have turned pink from the outside chill. Without a word, Elizabeth walks through and waits for Klaus to close the umbrella before walking up to the bar and taking a seat as far away from the other guests as she can get. Cami comes out of the back then with a couple of clean glasses in her hand, her hair pinned up high. She stops short at the sight of the vampires sitting at her counter, having not expected to see their faces today.

            “Well this is a surprise,” she says with a radiant smile. “What brings you in here today? Taking a break from all of the drama?”

            Klaus takes the available seat next to Elizabeth, scooting it freakishly close to her, and he ignores her when she rolls her eyes. He has started to find this grumpy attitude to be rather cute. She does not have the meanest face in the world. “I could ask you the same question,” he replies when Elizabeth does not. “You’ve decided to work here again? I figured all of the death would have steered you elsewhere.”

            Cami nods, gesturing to the entirety of the bar. “Rousseau’s is in my name now. Pretty much anyone who had any connection to it is dead and I just couldn’t let this place go. It’s too important to the Quarter. I work here when I’m not being a psychologist.”

            Klaus laughs, nodding his head appreciatively, and pulls a $100 bill from his wallet. “Well, then I suppose you’ll know what to do with this, then?”

            Nodding, Cami swoops up the bill and turns to the alcohol behind her. In the meantime, Elizabeth looks uncomfortably over her shoulder for any faces that carry any sort of familiarity. When she finds none, she shifts her eyes to Klaus and discovers that he is already looking at her. His eyes roam her face, taking in each and every detail that makes her into the beautiful woman she is. He has done this a million times over by now, but each time he does it feels like the first time. He has never met a woman as pure as she is and as innocent. She challenges him and tames the monster within him, something he has never been able to completely understand. It excites him.

            “You're staring again,” Elizabeth points out as she graciously accepts the glass of whiskey from Cami. “Your manners are terrible. Maybe I should ask Elijah to train you?”

            “Your face is worth staring at,” he replies honestly, ignoring the werewolf joke. “You are more beautiful than you realize.” 

            Before he can see the flare in her eyes, Elizabeth is sure to quickly look away from his piercing gaze. She takes a sip from her glass and looks down at the polished countertop. There are many dents and scratches from years of abuse and even spots that have been carved with the initials of past visitors. Elizabeth runs her fingers of a particular set of initials, reminiscing about the day they were put there. _EW, KM, EM, RM._ The four of them had stumbled into the bar after a night of celebrating and she recalls just how difficult it was to convince Elijah to carve his initials into the wood. They were all happy that night. Nobody had to worry about being daggered and put into a box, there was no looming threat of Lyanna and Charles. She takes another sip of the whiskey.

            Lately, she has thought a lot about where her life would be today had she not been taken away ten years ago. Would she still be living in New Orleans? Would she be off on another adventure to see the world and everything it has to offer? She has no idea. When she vanished, it felt as if her life had been ripped from her hands and there was nothing she could do about it. In the nearly eleven years she was gone, Hope grew into a beautiful young woman and New Orleans had been civilly run between Marcel and the Mikaelsons. She believes that if she had not been captured and taken away from everything she knows, she would be happy. Her life would be full and she would have everything she has ever wanted. Her home, the love of her long life, and whatever wonders that may have come her way.

            None of that matters now, of course. There’s no use in dwelling on the things that could have been when it will simply never become true. She cannot go back in time to stop Charles and the decade of torture she endured cannot be erased from her mind. For the rest of her long life, she will live with her scars. She can only hope that when the fighting is over and the world is right again, she can move on from the pain and the constant distrust she feels. Ten years out of her five hundred years of life seems so small, but it stretched over an eternity. Her trauma cannot own her forever. She will find herself again. At the end of the day, she has to. She was trained to be a fighter and she is determined to find that fighter within herself again.

            “Penny for your thoughts?” Klaus asks as he swivels in his stool to face her.

            Elizabeth smirks alluringly, twirling her whiskey around and around in her glass. “Just thinking about all of the ways I could shut you up.”

            “Oh, I can think of a few ways,” he tags on mischievously.

            Snorting, Elizabeth shakes her head doubtfully. “You’re all bark and no bite, Klaus.”

            Leaning in close, Klaus gently skims his finger over her exposed neck and he grins at the way she shivers from his light touch. “I’d be more than happy to bite, love.”

            “Okay, enough with the dirty talk. Some of us have supernatural hearing,” Cami complains as she comes by with another round for Klaus. “The last thing I need is to see you two getting all hot in heavy in my very public and very clean bar.”

            Elizabeth laughs dryly. “I can assure you there is nothing to worry about. After five hundred years, a girl learns,” she promises brightly.

            Klaus makes a face, but quickly disguises it behind a façade that resembles no humor. He will not take the bait this time. “Cami, I was wondering if I could ask you a question about your customers?”

            Pausing her work, Cami nods and from within his coat pocket, Klaus pulls his phone out. Discreetly, he shows her a picture of a painting and Cami stares at it with a frown.

            “Have you by chance seen this woman around lately?” He asks her.

            For a moment Cami stares, but she evidently shakes her head. “Not that I recall. I’m only here on the weekends so maybe she comes by during the week. However, I’m going to assume that is Lyanna given how much she looks like Elizabeth. I can keep an eye out for her and ask around. If she has been in the quarter, somebody must have seen her.”

            Swiping to the next photo, Klaus shows her another and Cami points to it. “Now him, I have seen. He’s been coming in here for a long time. Years, now that I think about it. Always drinks _Woodford Reserve_ bourbon,” she says. “He has asked me about you guys before. I had no idea who he was until now. If he comes in again, I’ll let you guys know. I actually feel disgusted that I’ve been serving him.” 

            Klaus nods and returns his phone to his pocket. Elizabeth, on the other hand, uneasily looks over her shoulder again. She knew Charles was close, but she had no idea he had been coming to her city for however long. Who knows how many times he has snuck himself into the compound? The thought makes her sick especially when she knows Hope often sleeps there.

            “I believe that answers our question, Elizabeth,” Klaus pipes up. “Our friends are in town. The only question left is where.”

            Anxiously, Elizabeth knocks back the rest of her whiskey and she closes her eyes as it burns going down. Refilling her glass, Cami decides to leave the entire bottle behind for them as she walks off to go tend to other customers. As her right hand begins to tremble, Elizabeth clamps her left over it and awkwardly shifts around on her stool. Klaus watches this with curiosity, wanting to help her but not knowing how.

            “About a year into being held, I was terrified,” Elizabeth says suddenly. “I was terrified of Charles and the things he would do to me. For three more years I let the fear control me until one day, I decided enough was enough. I decided that the fear was not worth my time. I told myself I would only let it run its course for five seconds before I shut it off. That’s how I stayed sane in my cell. It wouldn’t always work, but it worked when I needed it to.”

            Klaus does not show it, but his heart breaks to hear this story. What he would have done to be there for her. “You are a strong woman, Elizabeth Walker.”

            “And yet, here we are…” She sighs. To say she is tired would be an exaggeration. Maybe not physically, but mentally for sure. The minute this fight is over, she plans on taking a long vacation.

            Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Cami discreetly keeping an eye on them from the other end of the bar. The action seems odd until she looks around more to find that other vampires and werewolves are also watching. Word that she has returned to New Orleans has spread like wildfire. And, she supposes, it is a bit odd to see Niklaus Mikaelson at the bar with a woman. Regardless, she knows that seeing them together at the bar of all places is not the reason for why they are looking at now. They’re watching because she is known for taming him and turning him into the Mad Hybrid when she vanished. She is the woman who tore him to pieces and she hates it. That’s not who she wants to be and she wants nothing more to have the public stop watching.

            “Klaus, why don’t you let yourself be open to other people?” She asks seemingly out of nowhere. “People think I’m crazy for being so close to you because of all of the terrible things you have done, but they have no idea what kind of man you are.”

            “I do not let people get close, Elizabeth,” he mutters.

            “That’s right. Because when you do, they are taken away from you. You do not trust people and you run away in the face of happiness,” she says argumentatively.

            “You sound like Elijah. Have you two been spending quality time together?”

            “Wouldn’t you like to know…” She mutters, taking another sip.

            Sighing, Klaus knows he has to say _something_ to her. He has always been torn between wanting to send her away for her safety and never wanting to see her go because he’s selfish. When it comes down to it, no matter what he may have said to her in the past, he knows he would be destroyed should she leave his side again. He needs her now more than ever. It was tolerable in the past to send her off or to have an argument with her, but not it feels like the end of the world.       

“It’s true. I run because I am a danger, but then again… we’re all dangerous to each other,” he says. “Do I send you away to keep you safe or do I keep you by my side to satisfy my own selfish needs?” 

            “You’ve only had half a millennium to decide…” she comments with an eye roll.

            “Yes, and time and time again is my point proven. You’re not safe with me and you’re most definitely not safe on your own.”

            “It’s hilarious,” Elizabeth laughs. “You would think that because this issue is about _me_ , you would let me have some say in this decision of yours.”

            Sighing, Klaus swivels in his chair to face her. “And what would you have me do?”

            Seeing the opportunity to challenge him, Elizabeth forces herself to bite back her smile. “Maybe, for once, try to see the other side of it. We’re stronger when we’re together. We’re _all_ stronger when we’re together. Why send me away when all you’re going to do is stress about my safety?” She pries. “For five hundred years you have kept me at a safe distance because you are afraid. Do you really want another five hundred years to go by without knowing what the other side of it is like?”

            Klaus listens to her carefully. How could he not? She speaks the absolute truth. “If it helps, I think I am utterly incapable of letting you go again.”

            “Then why do we keep having these same fights?” She asks, voice breaking just slightly. “There’s an entire piece of life that we’re missing because of it.”

            With a gentle hand, Klaus reaches out and grabs hers from under the bar counter. His skin feels electric against hers, as if it were an electric current pulling them together. “It would be rather poetic,” he muses. “The devil falling in love with the angel… The innocent one falling for the evil bastard.”

            Elizabeth smiles ever so softly and she sighs, setting her glass down. She looks up to him and shakes her head, her hand reaching up to his hair. “You need a haircut.”

            Laughing, Klaus bats her hand away and reaches for the bottle Cami abandoned. “Trying to change the topic, are we?”

            Pursing her lips, Elizabeth shakes her head. “No, I just know when to change the subject before you start talking entirely in poems and metaphors.”

            Playfully offended, Klaus looks over his shoulder to scan the bar. There is not a single familiar face lingering about. Turning back to the woman at his side, he breathes in deeply and nudges her with his shoulder. “Aren’t you glad you came out now?” He asks curiously. “You’ve been cooped up in the compound for entirely too long.”

            “I’ve been cooped up in a lot of places for too long,” she points out with an apathetic smile. “But, yes. Your stupid plan was a good idea.”

            Silence falls between them, something they both need in this moment. Elizabeth takes a deep breath as she takes her next drink, pleased to have found some kind of common ground with Klaus after all this time. Somehow, that makes this entire ordeal easier. She will no longer have to wonder when he will try to send her away again. Granted, she says that with a grain of salt. Anything at any given moment can happen. For what it’s worth, she will make sure she is always ready. Her love for him is dangerous and she fears one day, it will be the thing that destroys them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: There were 15 different drafts for this story and I have been working on it and its coming sequel for over a year. For some reason, I love the sequel more, but this story started it and they're pretty much both my baby. In the original drafts, Nathan wasn't even a character and it was originally Damon who busted her out of Charles' facility. In fact, I'm pretty sure I had this story at 15 chapters before I cranked it to 40ish. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos. Life has been really busy lately.


	13. Collided Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being attacked in her bedroom, Elizabeth realizes she's not as safe as she once thought.

A hand wraps around her throat, squeezing tightly.

            Elizabeth’s eyes snap open and she reaches up to the hand that chokes her, alarmed to find that it’s Marcel, of all people, who is above her. Gasping, she kicks her legs free of her blanket and she forces her right foot against his abdomen. Pushing with all of the strength she can muster, Marcel flies and stumbles off of her into the balcony doors, shattering the glass. She blurs to her feet in a rush of panic and she tries to get a good read on the situation in the darkness of her room, confused by his sudden and hostile attack. She swore they were on good terms only weeks ago.

            “Marcel, what the hell are you doing?” She asks, coughing roughly.

            The younger vampire jumps to his feet and he lunges for her, tackling her smaller body back onto the bed. He says absolutely nothing to her. Twisting, she tries to buck him off of her. There’s a frenzy in his wild eyes, like a disease taking over his brain. It’s unnatural and it concerns her. Marcel pins her head down against the mattress by her throat and he plunges his other hand into her chest, wrapping his fingers around her heart. She cannot open her mouth to scream. Fighting, she grabs the hand that is in her chest and she bends it back until she hears the bone snap. Marcel yells, cursing in pain. Moving fast, she pushes him off of her. Bolting for the door, she trips over a pair of shoes she had stupidly left out in the open when she went to bed only a few hours ago.

            Coming up from behind her, his hand wraps around her ankle and he yanks her back with enough force to crack the old wooden flooring. Struggling against him, she pushes and shoves. She is older than him by at least three hundred years, she _should_ be much stronger than him. The cool air from the night brushes against her exposed midriff and the glass from the shattered door cuts into her feet as they take their fight out onto the balcony. He grabs fistfuls of her hair and she can barely get a grip on his shirt long enough to maintain leverage.

            “Marcel!” She yells, trying to break through to him. It’s almost as if he is sleepwalking. He’s completely alert and conscious, but he is not himself. Autopilot.

            Ducking down before he can make another swipe at her neck, she moves quickly and pops up behind him. In a blur, she leaps up onto his back and she steers him back into the bedroom where she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls. Marcel jerks around, reaching behind him to grab onto her bleeding back. With a heave, she is slammed onto the hard ground on top of the wooden splinters and broken glass. The wind is knocked out from her lungs violently. Gasping, she looks for an escape route. She cannot kill him and it is because of that, she will not win this fight. Before too long, Marcel grabs her by the hair and forces her to her feet which struggle to heal as more and more glass cuts into them.

            “Marcel, please,” she begs. Blood from her split lip travels down her chin. Her chest throbs as it closes up from its previous invasion.

            When she blinks next, they are back on the ground. Elizabeth gasps for air and rolls onto her stomach, doing her best to crawl away from him. Fiercely, she kicks her heel back directly into his face, satisfied when she hears his nose crunch. Desperately, she digs her fingers into the ground and a growl erupts from her throat. Inhuman, purely instinctual. Marcel flips her onto her back and from the broken pieces of her door, he picks up a usable wooden stake. With both hands wrapped around it, he strikes down as hard as he can.

            “NIKLAUS!” She yells, unsure of how nobody has heard them fighting yet.

            Bracing herself, she catches his wrists and looks down as the stake just barely pierces through her skin. With a clenched jaw, she yells and pushes back against him. The stake goes further and further down in their struggle, threatening to puncture her delicate heart. Suddenly, the bedroom door flies open and smacks hard enough into the wall to leave a sizable dent.

            “Marcellus!” Klaus bellows.

            Rushing to her aid, Klaus tackles Marcel off of her. Elizabeth scrambles to her feet, clutching her bedpost for support. Using the advantage that is a million times strong than he is, Klaus tumbles with Marcel until he gets his hands around his neck and snaps it. Marcel falls on top of Klaus with a thud and the hybrid shoves his body off to the floor. Haley is in the doorway next and she looks around with worried confusion on her face. When her eyes settle on a dead Marcel, she is alarmed.

            “What the hell happened in here?” She asks, rushing to his side. “What is Marcel doing here?”

            “Yes, I would quite like to know that myself,” Klaus says as he climbs to his feet. “It does look a bit self-incriminating, doesn’t it, Elizabeth?”

            Elizabeth shakes her head and wipes the blood away from her chin with the back of her hand. “I don’t know. He attacked me in my sleep,” she explains. “There’s something wrong with him. It was like he was sleeping walking. Whatever that was wasn’t Marcel.”

            Klaus rubs his face tiredly. None of them have been getting much sleep lately and it’s driving them all a bit insane. “This is Lyanna’s doing, then. He has been spying on Charles’ facility for weeks now. It would be best to lock him up should he try to do this again when he awakens.”

            Hayley sighs and grasps both of Marcel’s arms, dragging him out of the room effortlessly and quickly; it would be best if Hope didn’t see this in the morning. Elizabeth watches, a hand on her throat as her bruises and lacerations heal. The feeling of Marcel's hands strangling her still lingers and it brings back unpleasant memories, ones that she would very much like to forget about. Klaus frowns at the shattered door, making a mental note to have it repaired when time permits. He then turns to Elizabeth, examining the torn and blood-soaked pajamas she wears. Making a face of discomfort, she reaches behind her and feels for a piece of glass that protrudes from the side just below her ribs. In a single, swift yank she pulls it out and tosses it to the floor to join the rest of the mess. Clumsily, she falls back onto her bed and cringes at the way her feet crunch.

            “I think there’s glass in my feet,” she says with a scrunched face.

            Klaus walks off to her bathroom and returns seconds later with a pair of tweezers in his hands. He then flicks on the lights and he kneels down in front of her, gently lifting up her left foot. She leans herself back onto her hands, watching as he carefully pulls the glass from various parts of her foot. His movements are slow and calculated, as if to cause her as little pain as possible.

            “You don’t have to do this for me, you know,” she points out quietly as she tries her best not to move or jerk her foot when he gets to a particularly sensitive area.

            “Are you going to stop me?” He asks, completely focused on his little task.

            Elizabeth sighs and looks around at the destructive mess her room has become. “Nope.”

            For a while he plucks the glass pieces out of her feet, occasionally using his sweatpants to wipe the blood from his hands. When he pulls the last piece out, he walks off to the bathroom to clean himself up. Elizabeth looks down at her feet and wiggles her toes, pleased to no longer feel anything sharp in them. Slowly, the wounds close up and she flops back onto her bed, expelling a breath of tiredness. Out of all the ways she has been woken up, that was probably one of the most alarming. Though, she would take that over anything Charles woke her up with. When she hears Klaus shuffling around quietly, she props herself up and raises an eyebrow curiously. She would have thought he went back to his own bedroom by now.

            “Klaus, I hardly believe I will be attacked again tonight,” she says slowly. “You can return to your bedroom. I’ll clean this all up in the morning.”

            “You can forgive me for being a little skeptical about your safety,” he sighs, taking a seat beside her.

            Grimacing, she climbs off of the bed and carefully navigates the glass-covered floor to her dresser where she digs around for a new shirt. “Then, by all means, play baby sitter.”

            Peeling the bloody shirt from her skin, she looks down at her torso to find it full of closing cuts and forming bruises. She can feel Klaus’ eyes burning a hole into her back and she is startled when she suddenly feels his body standing no more than two inches away from her. His fingers are delicate on her back, tracing down her spine. His tracing stops about halfway down and he shifts to pull a piece of wood out of her that had been lodged in there from her fall. She flinches and keeps her back to him when his hands move to her hips, securely holding her against his chest. He feels warm on her bare skin and it takes everything in her to not turn around.

            She can feel his breath against the back of her neck and the way his fingers dig into her skin would suggest he doesn’t want to let her go. Slowly, he leans down to kiss her neck a single time and she stiffens, her breath hitching in her throat. He kisses her twice more, settling on the spot just behind her ear. For a moment more, she stands there, pressing herself up against his body, her hands covering his, her breath speeding up… but she has to get away. She steps away from his delicate hold and closes her bathroom door behind her without ever turning back to look at him. Exhaling slowly, she leans up against the door to settle her heart – which beats a rate she _knows_ he can hear – and to clear her thoughts. The bathroom fills with steam as she turns the shower on, clouding her mirror. She scrubs at her skin lightly, taking careful notice to not run the soap over her healing wounds. After her shower is finished, after she has dressed herself for a new day and pulled her hair up, she opens her bathroom door to find her room empty.

            “Okay, but what if, and don’t get me wrong here… What if Lyanna’s goal isn’t to bring you down?” Hayley suggests.

            Elizabeth, with her back pressed against the arm of the couch and her legs stretched out in front of her, shakes her head tiredly. “If that were the case, and that is a _big_ if given how she died in the first place, she’s still working with Charles who _definitely_ wants me.”

            Freya sighs and sets another stack of papers off to the side when she finds nothing useful in them. “It’s possible Lyanna cast some sort of spell to prolong her life, but that would have to take a considerable amount of power,” she guesses from where she sits cross-legged on the desk.

            “Well, maybe you’re not entirely wrong,” Hayley says. “Maybe the spell wasn’t meant to prolong her life. Maybe it was meant to raise her from the dead after a certain amount of time?”

            “But, of course,” Elizabeth chimes in, “we would have to consider she was never really dead to begin with. Maybe she’s been out there all of this time waiting for the perfect moment to begin her work again. Whatever she is doing, she has a plan. She has always had a plan.”

            “When did you notice Lyanna had gone off the deep end?” Freya asks, tucking a pencil behind her ear casually as to not lose it again.

            Elizabeth pops another grape into her mouth, chewing slowly as she thinks. She never thought she would have to have this kind of conversation ever again. “Shortly after she first killed someone. She insisted that it was an accident, but I had my doubts. It’s why we left our town and why we ended up meeting Klaus and Elijah in the woods,” she recalls. “After that, I noticed she had been talking to other witches who were known to practice dark magic. I would eventually come home to find her murdering snakes or drinking goat blood.”

            “And what provoked you to kill her?” Hayley asks, only a little curious. “I don’t mean to pry, but the more we know about her the safer it is for everyone else.”

            Seeing no issue with digging up the once ancient history, Elizabeth shrugs her shoulders and moves her bowl of grapes to the coffee table. “Something snapped one day or… maybe it was something gradual. She and Elijah had history. I can’t speak for Elijah, but she loved him more than anything in the world. She would always tell me how much she loved him and how much she wanted to be his wife one day. That was until we found him on the floor with one of Klaus' daggers in his chest. She was using him to draw power. We all decided that after everything we had done to protect her and our secret, it was time.”

            Hayley makes a face of disgust. “Why am I not surprised one of the Mikaelsons got caught up in somebody like that?” She asks, laughing.

            “We’re all perpetually cursed to have nasty history,” Freya answers lightly. “Regardless, maybe that was Lyanna’s plan to begin with. She knew she could never touch Klaus, so she went for the next available bachelor for his power.”

            “I considered that for a long time, but Lyanna loved him. And maybe that’s what the plan became after her corruption, but she would have given everything to be with him,” Elizabeth says. It feels strange to be talking about these events so many centuries later. “We were never able to find her plans. She hid them well and if I had to guess, she’s doing exactly what she tried to do before she was killed.”

            Hayley rubs her face tiredly. After hours upon hours of going over this stuff, she is worn out. “Great. Nothing like a sixteenth-century, bloodthirsty witch with a grudge.”

            Laughing, Elizabeth is startled when the doors to the study burst open. Klaus peers inside, a little put off to find all of the women hiding away in one room with various snacks. His eyes fall briefly on Elizabeth’s, but he is quick to look away from her. After their short-lived moment last night, he can hardly spare the time for distractions.

            “Elijah and Rebekah are back from their suicide mission,” he announces. “A few weeks late might I add, but back nevertheless.”

            Hayley stops pacing abruptly, turning to Klaus with wide eyes and hands on her hips. “Did they find Kol? Are they okay?”

            “Oh, yes. Everyone is quite alright. Kol is currently trying to murder Rebekah in the dining room, actually,” Klaus says a bit too happily.

            Practically throwing herself off of the couch, Elizabeth zips out of the study and down to the dining room where nothing but crashes and yelling can be heard. She discreetly pokes her head into the room but has to quickly duck out of the way to avoid a dinner plate that sails through the air. She pops back up and looks around with wide eyes, afraid something else might be thrown her way next.

            “Brother, you are making this entirely too hard on yourself,” Elijah says loudly as he too is forced to crouch down out of the way. Only, he had the pleasure of avoiding a heavily weighed whiskey glass from one of the many alcohol bars in the compound.

            Cautiously, Elizabeth walks into the room just as Rebekah stoops down and uses the grand table as shield to avoid various and vicious attacks from Kol. She stares with worry as they dodge around each other at impossible speeds, yelling several unpleasant profanities and pleas that can hardly be understood.

            “What is going on in here?” Elizabeth asks a little too loudly.

            At the sound of her voice, Kol’s head whips around in her direction and his true face is shown. He’s hostile, just like Marcel was last night. Kol is fast and skillful when he jumps over the table and is only an inch away from sinking his fangs into her neck by the time she manages to throw her arms up protectively against his shoulders. He growls at her and snaps his jaw, completely ravenous. Elizabeth yells and sends her knee into his gut, making him double over for only a second. His bound hands come up and wrap around her throat, strangling the life out of her. She is strong, but in no way can her strength be matched to the strength of an Original. Realizing that she needs help, Elijah jumps over a shattered chair and grabs a hold of Kol, nearly tearing his brother’s shirt as he does so. Yanking him back violently, Kol falls to the ground with an unimpressive thud.

            “Does that answer your question?” Elijah asks with a heavy, exhausted sigh.

            Rebekah stands from the floor, dusting her pants off from the broken kitchenware residue. “We found him making his way to the compound through the Bayou. He was fighting some wolves when we finally tracked him down. We suspect Charles had him in his facility, if anyone cares. Kol has been completely spelled out of his mind.”

            Elizabeth glances over to Kol as Elijah struggles to keep him pinned to the ground. “How do we fix him?”

            Freya, coming up from behind with Hayley, runs a hand anxiously through her hair. It seems like her list of problems to fix has somehow managed to grow again. She cannot remember the last night she spent with Keelin that didn’t involve research on Lyanna. “With a lot of spell work, I would think,” she answers. “Both he and Marcel are going to need a lot of it if I’m going to undo whatever the hell Lyanna did to their minds.”

            “Marcel?” Rebekah asks, alarmed. “What the bloody hell happened to Marcel while we were away?”

            Klaus chuckles, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. “He tried to rip out Elizabeth’s heart last night. He nearly succeeded too had I not heard her screaming for her life.”

            Elizabeth squints a little, glaring at him as she catches his little white lie. “You didn’t come until after I screamed for you. Never mind the sounds of glass breaking and my body being slammed into the floor,” she corrects.

            Klaus, completely ignoring her comment, turns his attention back to his little sister. “We snapped his neck and stuck him in the basement. That is exactly where our brother should go until we can free their minds. I won’t have them walking around here in this state.”

            “I’ll call Davina,” Hayley says in passing. “She should know and she can help take the workload off of Freya’s shoulders.”

            When nobody else has anything remotely intelligent to say, Elijah forces the rabid Kol out of the room and down to the basement. Elizabeth kneels down to the ground and starts picking up broken pieces of dinner plates and glasses. Her hands shake a little as she does this and she hates herself for not having a better grip on her anxiety. This is now the second member of her family who has been turned against her for the sake of Lyanna’s heinous games. She is not as safe as she once thought and neither is anybody else. If Lyanna can manipulate the mind of an Original, she fears far worse things are coming for them. With time, everyone files out of the room to go about their daily business. All except for Klaus. He watches her for a long time, his hands folded behind his back, before he finally decides to say something. He can tell that everything that has happened in the past twelve hours is impacting her in negative ways.

            “You know, we do have housekeepers that can clean this all up,” he says slowly.

            Elizabeth sighs and looks up to him, a look of exhaustion on her face. She feels like she’s teetering on the edge today and it’s eating herself up on the inside. How can she be okay with this? How can she be okay with anything that has happened?

            “I’m just trying to keep busy, Klaus,” she says.

            Turning back to the mess, she begins to rapidly clear a path, but a hand on top of hers puts a stop to her manic cleaning. Klaus looks at her and waits patiently for her to do the same, never taking his hand away from hers. And when she does, there is a tortured look in her eyes. He has never seen a look quite like this before. She’s struggling.

            “Let the housekeepers do their job,” he advises gently.

            “What the hell happened in here?” Cami asks, walking into the room.

            Elizabeth jerks her hand back and she stands up, wiping away a tear that manages to escape. “Rebekah and Elijah found Kol. He and Marcel have been put under a spell that makes them want to kill me.”

            “Marcel was spelled? When did this happen?” She presses, feeling a little out of the loop.

            “Last night,” Elizabeth sighs as she flees the room. She cannot handle any more questioning right now.

            Cami draws her eyebrows together and follows Elizabeth with her gaze, a little worried about how she’s acting today. She then turns to Klaus with the same worried expression and he shakes his head, taking a seat on one of the four chairs that managed to survive Kol’s onslaught. Cami navigates to the spot next to him and she looks around the room once more, trying to find the right words to say without making herself sound entirely too nosy.

            “How… is she doing?” She asks curiously.

            Klaus rests his elbows on the table, a hand dragging down his face. “She’s barely keeping herself together. To be honest, I’m not sure how she has made it this far without losing it. Any other person would have snapped by now. She already had enough to worry about and now she has to wonder which person in her life is going to try and kill her next.”

            “Has she talked about it at all?” Cami asks, trying to gather enough information to get a better understanding of what is happening to her.

            “Which part? The torture? The invasion of her mind? Finding out that Lyanna is not as dead as we would all like her to be?” Klaus asks in return, finding that there is no shortage of problems on the list. “She has barely talked to anyone about it. A few times to me, I suppose. Very few details.”

            “Klaus, she needs to… I don’t know… Open up about it. She’s only one woman and all of this is weighing down on her. I know she’s strong, but this has got to be killing her,” Cami points out. “A few months ago, she was released from a place where she was tortured every day for nearly eleven years. With all that has been happening, I doubt she has had time to process that and handle her trauma.”

            “And what am I supposed to do?” Klaus demands in a quiet voice. “She and I have enough problems. The last thing I want to do is force her into talking about something that is exceptionally delicate.”

            Irritated, Cami pushes away from the table and stands with a fury. “Klaus, you can see that she’s suffering. _All_ of you can see that she’s having trouble and how many times have any of you checked on her to make sure she isn’t losing her damn mind?”

            Turning on her heel, she moves to walk promptly out of the room, but Klaus’ hand on her arm forces her to stop before she can even make it out of the doorway. She turns to him with her eyebrows raised, waiting for him to speak.

            “Where are you going?” He asks, looking between her eyes.

            “I’m going to go do what you should have been doing form the start,” she snaps, yanking her arm free.

            And when she is gone, Klaus is left standing in the middle of the dining room with a massive weight of guilt pressing down on his shoulders.

            Easing herself down on the wooden chair at her desk, Elizabeth plucks one of her journals from the nearby bookshelf that is overflowing with novels. She runs her fingers over the bright blue cover and large ‘M’, remembering the time in which she wrote in this one. This journal contains the year leading up to her disappearance. Since coming back, she has refused to read it in fear of what it would do to her. However, right now, she feels one little shred of bravery. She flips open to the first page and smiles softly, feeling a welcome wave of nostalgia. Things weren’t entirely simple back then, but she at least felt at peace with herself. She had a family and they were finally back in New Orleans after spending decades away… It was a time that followed the same pattern that her entire life had followed. It made sense and it was home.

 

>             _January, 2013_
> 
> _Hope returned home this month. Klaus is the happiest he has been in a long while. It eases his mind to know his daughter is accessible, so to speak. The entire family is overjoyed, actually. She has already grown so much._

Running her fingers over the words, she feels the indents in the paper from when she pressed a little too hard as she wrote. As she takes in a deep breath, she flips to the last journal entry in this book. The night of her disappearance. She closes her eyes for a brief moment as she tries to find the strength in herself to read what she wrote. Only a single paragraph is written, nothing too elaborate or exciting. However, this is the place in her life in which everything changed.

 

>             _December, 2013_
> 
> _Tonight is the Christmas Eve party. Klaus insists this holiday is for cliché romantics, but I feel differently. Rebekah and I were up all last night going through the final fittings for our dresses. Klaus provided me with my dress this time around, although he swears it wasn’t him. He’s a terrible liar. I’m excited for the party. I’ve always loved the parties Elijah puts together (he has a talent for it). I just hope, for this one night, we can be at peace. The new year will bring new terrors, but we are strong so long as we stay together. Which is something I desperately need to drill into Klaus’ head. We'll see… I love that temperamental hybrid._

            Elizabeth’s hand begins to shake as she reads the last few sentences over and over again. It seems entirely too poetic and cliché for it to be real. Snapping the journal closed, she leans back into her chair and looks up to the ceiling. Her entire life was stolen away from her and for months now, she has pretended it hardly bothers her. The woman she was a decade ago was optimistic and although she had suffered, she was pure. Now, she feels broken and damaged. Everything hurts. Her mind is clouded, invaded. Frustrated, she sweeps everything off of her desk and onto the hardwood floor. The journal slides under the dresser, far out of her sight. The pencils and pens scatter all over the wooden floor… She wants her pain to stop.

            Turning her gaze down to her lap, she brings her hands to her eyes and her tears begin to fall when she can no longer fight them. She feels the muscles of her chin begin to tremble; her entire body tenses up. There is a weight on her shoulders once again, a side effect from the constant stress and fear that she lives with. She can hear the sounds she is making, almost like a child who had fallen down… raw, broken. The sobs rip through her, making it hard for her to breathe. Over and over. In and out. She feels hollow.

            From behind her, Cami pokes her head in through the doorway and is horrified by the sight in front of her. Knowing what she needs, she silently closes the door behind her and edges closer to the woman whose life is falling apart in front of her. Elizabeth rocks back and forth in her chair, she cannot see Cami through the pain that blinds her. There are no words to express how angry and lost she feels. Careful not to make any quick movements, Cami gently touches her shoulder and she jerks at the touch. Elizabeth looks up to her, her eyes screaming with the weight of the decade of torture she endured.

            “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, but I heard you crying and…” Cami pauses, searching for the right words to say. “You’ve held in most of your trauma until now. If you want to talk about it, I will listen.”

            Elizabeth all but chokes on her sobs and she shakes her head, trying to find it within herself to speak clearly as she stands. “I-I can’t live… like t-this,” she chokes out. Her voice is hoarse, strained from her sobs. “He took _everything_ from me… and-and I am so fucking angry at him for it. It hurts.”

            Cami is gentle as she guides them to the edge of Elizabeth’s bed, folding one leg under the other as they sit. “You have every right to feel this upset over what Charles did to you. He kidnapped you, threw you in a cell, and he hurt you for a decade in ways that I’m sure nobody can imagine. Not even Klaus,” she says. “He took your family from you, he took your life away from you, and he took your freedom.”

            Taking in a deep breath even though she feels as if her lungs are being weighed down by an elephant, Elizabeth does her best to wipe her tears with the back of hands. “All I want is to be strong enough to get through this. I keep telling myself that if I can kill him, it will all go away, but I know it won’t. He broke me and somehow, I have to move on from it.

            Cami listens to her carefully, searching for the root of her problems. “Your pain isn’t going to go away quickly. You were forced into a horrible situation and now that you’re out, you’re struggling. You’re afraid and that’s okay.”

            Klaus stands just outside of Elizabeth’s bedroom with his back against the door as he listens to everything that’s being said between them even though he knows he shouldn’t. If the roles were reversed, he would happily kill anyone who thinks they could eavesdrop on his sessions with Cami. As stupid as it may be, he can’t help himself. In no way is it an excuse, but he cares deeply for Elizabeth and somewhere in his complicated heart, he loves her. It’s killing him to not be in there with her – to not be in there while she cries and to not be in there when he knows she needs him – but he has experienced firsthand what Cami can do and regardless of how easy it would be to burst through the door, he keeps his place. Out of everyone in their family and friends, Cami is the best person for Elizabeth to be speaking to because she understands and she knows all of the right words to say, something Klaus has struggled with for as long as he has been alive. Out of the corner of his eye, Elijah appears in the hallway and he looks to his brother, exchanging silent words with him as they both can hear the sobs that come from Elizabeth’s room. Shamefully, he pushes silently away from the door and shoves his hands deep in his pockets, leaving her to have her privacy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little longer than the rest because I thought it was important to address Elizabeth's mental health, given what she has been through and how little she has talked about in the story thus far. 
> 
> A little heads up: I'm going to be leaving for camping in a couple of days. Before I go, I'll post 1 or 2 chapters to keep you guys entertained while I'm gone (It depends on which cliffhanger I want to leave you guys on)
> 
> When I get back, brace yourself for a lot of bullshit that I'm about ready to throw at you! ;) 
> 
> I'm not sure how many of you read my end notes but... THANK YOU to everyone who is reading this. Publishing always makes me so nervous. I put a TON of work into this story and even more work into the sequel that's coming. I might cry when it's all done. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	14. A Masquerade of Devils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Acting impulsively, Klaus decides to throw a party despite Elizabeth's desperate protests and lures dark figures from the shadows.

“Klaus… You _cannot_ be serious,” Elizabeth sighs, bringing her hand to her forehead in panic.

            Klaus smiles back at her, gesturing to the main floor of the Abattoir that currently crawls with party designers and their crews. “Oh, I’m perfectly serious, sweetheart,” he reassures. “It’s just what we need right now.”

            Dropping her hand down to her hip, she stares at the hybrid in complete and utter disbelief. “I don’t know if you’ve realized, but there are people out there that want to kill us,” she reminds him. “In what context does a party make sense to you? You’re basically inviting the enemy right to our front door!” 

            Klaus turns to the banister and he rests his hands upon it, leaning forward just slightly. “Yes, well, I’m gambling. It’s been ages since we have had a spot of fun, hasn’t it?” He questions, amused with himself. “Should our enemies confront us in the eye of the public, then at least we will know just how brave they perceive themselves to be.”

            “You’ve finally lost your mind,” Elizabeth states.

            “Who has lost their mind?” Elijah asks as he walks up from behind. He peers over the ledge of the banister, a frown appearing on his face as he assesses what kind of chaos is happening down below.

            “Your brother has gone completely insane. He wants to host a party tonight,” Elizabeth answers hastily. “Please tell me you do not agree with this?”

            Elijah turns his eyes to his younger brother as he adjusts his tie. “I’m afraid my opinion will not matter,” he says casually. “I will not be attending.”

            Klaus pushes away from the banister to turn to Elijah, a look of disapproval in his eyes. “Have you decided that the party scene is no longer for you, Elijah?” He asks tauntingly. “Or are you simply too old to enjoy a night of fun?”

            “Niklaus, as much as I would to stay and appease your ever-growing ego, I do have other matters to attend to in regards to the witches,” he clarifies. “Throw a party if you must. I leave the safety of our family in your hands. Do not make me regret it.”

            Elizabeth looks between her brothers, struggling to wrap her head around this. She cannot believe what she is hearing. “Unbelievable,” she says. “You actually think that this is a good idea.”

            Klaus turns his attention to the younger vampire, amusement still on his face. “Our enemies want to make us cower with fear. Now, if you ask me, they simply have become too big for their britches,” he laughs. “I do not cower and I will not show them fear.”

            Elizabeth squeezes her eyes shut tightly for a moment to make sure she is actually awake and not stuck in some tedious dream. “Klaus, the last thing we want to do is be too bold. Please be rational about this.”

            “I am being rational, love,” he insists. “Now, go run off and find Rebekah. I’m sure she will be dying to have you help her pick out her gown for the night.”

            She will never get anywhere with him, not when he is so hell-bent on doing this. Turning on her heel, she marches down the hallway to Rebekah’s room where she has been holed up for most of the morning. To put it lightly, she cannot understand how Klaus be so smart, yet so insanely idiotic. It’s almost as if she is the only one seeing clearly. Knocking once, she opens the door to Rebekah’s room and she pokes her head inside. Rebekah stands beside her window with her arms crossed over her chest.

            “I assume you’ve heard about Klaus’ plans for the night?” She asks, stepping into the room slowly and she is sure to close the door behind her.

            Rebekah looks over her shoulder, nodding. “Yes, I have. Have you got a dress to wear?”

            Elizabeth throws her hand up with an unimpressed expression on her face. “No, but I’m sure I can dig something up before tonight. Klaus thought you might like some help picking out your dress, however.

            “Of course he does,” she sighs heavily. “Trust me, Nik only wanted you out of his hair. I heard you two bickering out there. It was dreadful.”

            Elizabeth laughs and takes a seat on the bench at the foot of Rebekah’s large bed. “That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve only been calling him an idiot all morning,” she agrees. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks throwing a party right now is a dangerous decision?”

            Rebekah turns to her large closet, pulling the doors open. “No, I too think it’s rather unwise given the state Kol and Marcel are in,” she says. “But, Nik will not change his mind. He could care less if someone gets hurt because of his impulsiveness.”

            Elizabeth draws her eyebrows together, tilting her head ever so slightly to the side as she picks up on Rebekah’s short tone. “Are you okay, Rebekah? You seemed a little… off… at breakfast this morning.”

            The youngest Original sighs and turns to face Elizabeth with her hands planted on her hips. “Truthfully speaking, I’ve been feeling a bit left out on this business with Lyanna and Charles,” she admits. “I’ve been stuck on the sidelines as everyone else is busy with their jobs. I had to fight just to go find Kol. It’s a bit obvious Elijah wants to keep me safe, but I’m not a delicate child.”

            Elizabeth raises an eyebrow, a little surprised to hear this. However, she can detect something else hiding within Rebekah's tone. There's something else she's dwelling on. “That's not all, is it?”

            “It’s not important, Liz,” she deflects. “I’m just being my old, jealous self. Really, I’m fine.”

            Trying to understand the hidden meaning behind her words, Elizabeth leans back against the bed frame with her arms crossed. It makes sense now that she thinks about it. “You’re jealous of me,” she states.

            Rebekah presses her lips together as if she is unsure if it would benefit her to speak or not. “I know it’s silly of me. You’re basically my baby sister,” she laughs anxiously. “But you’ve got it all, Liz. If we pretend that your business with Charles never happened, you have a man who loves you, a family that would never turn on you, and a gorgeous face that no one could ever say no to. You’re amazing.”

            Standing from the bench, Elizabeth walks over to the younger Mikaelson. She has been there for Rebekah in the times she has needed a shoulder to cry on and it appears she will need to be there for her again. It doesn’t bother her, though. It never has. Only now, it feels entirely different.

            “Rebekah, you’re stunning. After all of this time, you should know that,” she says seriously. “And, let’s be honest. The man that loves me is a homicidal, narcissistic, paranoid Original Hybrid with a bad temper. That man that loves you is only temporarily spelled to try and kill me.”

            Rebekah cannot help but laugh. “I suppose I'd rather have a fool love me rather than a man like Nik. I'm not sure how you handle him. Let alone bare to be alone with him for more than twenty minutes at a time.”

            Elizabeth shrugs her shoulders casually. She’s happy that she at least got Rebekah to laugh a little, even if it was at her expense. For as old as they are, she understands that it can get difficult to hold yourself together when you only have forever to live with yourself and the family around you.

            “I have a high tolerance for bullshit,” she jokes “That and I understand him. I get who he is and I see the man he really is. I’m not sure how many people actually take the time to see past his temper. He's not as terrible or as heartless as he would like people to believe.”

            Rebekah huffs, raising her eyebrows. “Yes, well… I think you’re one of the few people he hasn’t tried to stick in a box with a dagger in your heart.”

            “No, but has tried to kill me a dozen times and has sent me away for years at a time because I intervened in his plans or got caught up in something he frowned upon,” she says lightly. “He has also ditched me in strange countries so he could go off to do something nasty.”

            Rebekah snickers and turns to her closet, admiring her clothes. “We should probably be mindful of what we say. Knowing him, he's probably eavesdropping,” she warns sarcastically. She couldn't actually care less if he hears them talk about his mannerisms.

            “He's probably enjoying it if that's the case,” Elizabeth says with an eye roll. “Narcissist, remember? A complete egomaniac.”

            Rebekah giggles and reaches into her closet for two of her many dresses. “From what I gathered, Nik's theme for this party is _Midnight Masquerade_ ,” she says. “If you ask me, the theme is a bore, but which would you suggest?”

            Pulling both gowns out, Rebekah holds them up in front of her. One is a lace dark blue ball gown with a plunging neckline and a flowing skirt. The second is striking a white dress, which contrasts Klaus' selected theme, which holds the home to many crystals on the corset-like-bodice and has a subtle skirt with a thigh slit. Elizabeth weighs both options carefully as both would look amazing on her, but she knows exactly what Rebekah needs tonight. She needs to be the show stopper; the one everyone looks at. Smiling, she points with confidence to her dress of choice.

            “Go with the white one,” she suggests happily. “It’ll both piss off Klaus and make you look like the hottest one there.”

            Rebekah beams and puts the blue one back with her other dresses. She then holds the white one up to her once again, looking down at the fabric. “It is a stunning one, isn’t it?” She asks openly, smiling nearly ear to ear. “Oh, but what will you wear? I’ve seen your closet. It’s absolutely dreadful.”

            “I’ll try not to take offense to that,” Elizabeth laughs. “I have to go dig something out. Assuming Klaus didn’t set fire to all of my stored things after I disappeared, I’m bound to have a dress for tonight.”

            Stepping out from her bathroom, Elizabeth closes her robe around her body and loosely ties the belt around her middle. She can hear the soft music from the party playing downstairs and lord knows she as supposed to be down there minutes ago, but there is still one pressing issue. The only dress she was able to find had a notable tear in it and given her lack of a tailor, it has left her with nothing to wear of substantial value or glamour. Plopping down at her desk, she touches up her makeup in the small ring light mirror. In the reflection of the room behind her, she catches sight of a box sitting unopened on her bed with a ribbon wrapped around it. Twisting around in her chair, she eyes the box suspiciously. It had not been there prior to her shower, meaning someone slipped in here to give it to her. Getting up, she slowly walks over to the box and finds a small note on top of it from the allusive culprit.

            _‘I do hope this gown fulfills all of your wishes. Please join me when you are ready. I’ll be waiting for your arrival. –Klaus_

            Elizabeth rolls her eyes as she slowly realizes it was Klaus who tore her dress and it will be Klaus who she makes pay for the repair work it now needs. Curiously, she unties the ribbon and lifts the lid of the box off to reveal a beautiful dark blue dress that has been carefully crafted with many stones and crystals. This dress is old and has clearly been held onto for many years. With gentle hands, she pulls the dress from the box to look at it in all of its entirety. The back of the dress is essentially all open until what would be her mid-lower back and the straps, although tasteful, are off the shoulder. It's, for lack of a better word, beautiful and will do just fine for tonight. Smiling to herself, she drops her robe and steps into the dress, pulling it up to her shoulders. She then pairs it with her favorite black pumps and turns to look at herself in her full-length mirror.

            The top hugs her as a corset would, but she still finds it easy to breathe. She looks elegant and well put together and she finds humor in that because on the inside, she's a wreck. This dress, the makeup she wears, is only a mask. If anyone were to take a look inside of her mind, she fears they may run for the hills. She's damaged and after all this time, she has accepted that. It's a morbid thought for her to have, but she has the literal definition of forever to repair herself after all of the damage Charles has caused her.

            Hoisting her dress upwards just enough for her to walk without tripping, she turns to leave the comfort of her bedroom. Unrecognizable people linger in the hallways as she walks and although some try to stop her for casual conversation, she doesn’t stop. In the past few hours, her opinion of this party has not changed. She still firmly believes this is wrong and that Klaus is an idiot for exercising his overzealous and lavish ego tonight. The timing is all wrong and she feels something uncomfortable in her gut. Choking back her resentment, she turns out onto the steps and is mesmerized by all that has happened to the main floor while she was getting ready.

            Dark blue and white curtains hang from the banisters, twinkling under the dull glow of the soft lights that hang from above. Seemingly suspended in air are balloons that fill the empty space and bring a smile to her face. On most surfaces are candles that flicker in the darkness and stationed on various stages are performers that do the most unusual acts. Elizabeth cannot help but laugh with brief excitement. Stepping off from the stairs, she effortlessly navigates through the clustered crowd to the nearest available table that has not been overrun by masked witches, wolves, and vampires alike. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Rebekah chatting up a nice blonde boy by the bar. She seems perfectly happy, but she knows it’s an act. Even with a mascaraed mask on, she can still see the pain in Rebekah’s eyes that she has been struggling with.

            “Well, I must say… You look stunning tonight,” Klaus says as he appears before her.

            Elizabeth takes a moment to examine what he has chosen to wear for tonight. He wears a black tux that hugs his form, perfectly tailored to his body. His hair has been styled slightly different and his tie matches the tone of her dress, which does not surprise her in the slightest.

            “You’re not wearing a mask,” she points out.

            “And neither are you,” he tags on, gesturing to her face, “but I much prefer to look at you like this with no obstructions. There’s no use in hiding your beauty behind a silly mask.”

            Elizabeth hums softly, fidgeting with her daylight ring as the usual warmth from his compliments passes through her. “Shall we discuss when you will be taking my dress in for repairs?” She asks, her eyes almost sparkling under the lights.

            Klaus smiles knowingly, but he does not acknowledge what he did. “I don't know what you're talking about, love,” he deflects. “However, I am pleased to see that the dress I left for you fits.”

            Elizabeth looks down at the gown, running her hands over her stomach down to her hips. “That seems to be a reoccurring theme, Klaus. It's almost as if you have collected these dresses for me,” she teases lightly knowing that she is not far from the truth.

            Walking around the table, Klaus pulls a small black box from within his coat and he opens it up to her. Inside rests a small, round locket that is just a bit smaller than a quarter. On the front is a small _M_ and it is surrounded by beautiful and intricate carving that digs into the white gold. Elizabeth gently pulls it from the box and she runs her thumb over it, feeling the grooves against her skin. Angling it towards the light, she pops it open and examines what rests on the inside. On the left is an empty photo slot and on the right is a small, yet simple inscription. _My heart is, and always will be, yours_. Elizabeth parts her lips slightly, surprised by the meaning behind it.

            “Jane Austin,” she whispers, a smile appearing on her face. “Klaus, this is beautiful. Thank you.”

            “I should mention that Freya has charmed this necklace,” he adds. “So long as you do not take it off, it will protect your mind from Charles.”

            Elizabeth lets out an audible sigh of relief. “Privacy.”

            Nodding, Klaus pulls something else from the black box and he looks down on it with drawn eyebrows. If Elizabeth didn't know better, she'd say he looks almost nervous. “Elijah insisted that I not have this in there when I give it to you for the sake of your choice, but now that it is in your hands, I will give you the option of using this photo if you want.”

            Passing the image over, Elizabeth looks down at the small image and she cannot help but smile once again. The photo is of himself, one that was taken recently. For a long while she stares at it, thinking over why Klaus would feel nervous about giving this to her and then it dawns on her that he is not so much nervous, but afraid. He listened to Elijah and kept his photo out of it because he fears she would not want to open her heart him given what the locket means. Without another thought about it, she carefully slips the photo in the locket and snaps it closed.

            “I know what I’m doing by accepting this. I know that by wearing it, I’m making a promise to you and I intend to keep that promise,” she says. “I have followed you around for half a millennium and I have watched you do many terrible things, but I know who you are. I was yours the minute you found me in the woods.”

            Klaus is unable to say anything in response to the bravery of her words. It has always been an unspoken, but much acknowledged, truth between them. Taking the locket from her, he opens the chain clasp as she turns around for him. Gingerly, he wraps it around her neck and clasps it closed and it occurs to him that he never wishes to see her without it.

            “Now that you have marked your territory,” Elizabeth jokes lightly as she twirls back around, “would you care dance with me?”

            “As long as you promise to stop making terrible werewolf jokes,” he says bitterly.

            “Never,” she beams. “You’re my favorite wolf.”

            Elizabeth offers her hand to him and he takes it, leading her into the heart of the crowd. Having done this a thousand times over, she steps close to him and rests her arms upon his biceps as he securely holds one hand on her waist and the other on her lower back. Together, perfectly in sync with each other's bodies, they start to move slowly to the soft playing music. Elizabeth looks lovingly into the eyes of the hybrid, admiring how beautiful they are under the lights that shine above them. He has always had such stunning eyes and she is baffled by how easily they draw her in. She supposes, though, it has always been that way. It was, after all, his eyes and his smile that drew her in when they first met.

            “Has anyone ever told you how wonderful your eyes are?” She asks suddenly, unable to escape the thought.

            Klaus raises his eyebrows, a little caught off guard. “I believe I have heard it once or twice before,” he replies lightly. “Are you giving me compliments now, Elizabeth?”

            “It seems only fair,” she muses allowed. “You have showered me with many in our many years of knowing each other. That is, of course, when you are not fighting with me.”

            Klaus opens his mouth to speak in defense of himself, but he is cut off by the sudden appearance of another man. Changing the topic, he instead smiles and gestures his hand to the man who stands just behind Elizabeth.

            “I believe this man is here to see you,” he comments knowingly.

            Confused, Elizabeth looks over her shoulder to see Nathan standing before her in a standard black and white tux. Excitedly, she pulls from Klaus and throws her arms around him, pulling him as close as his human body will allow.

            “What are you doing here?” She asks happily, pleased to see another familiar face.

            Nathan shrugs his shoulders and goes to point to Klaus, but the hybrid no longer stands where he once stood. Frowning a little, Nathan looks around the room curiously. “Your boyfriend and his sister reached out to me. They thought it would do you some good to have a friend around for once.”

            Elizabeth smiles small and reaches out to straighten his bowtie that she managed to mess up in the mess of their hug. “Klaus is _not_ my boyfriend,” she laughs. “He's just... It's just-”

            “-Complicated?” Nathan finishes for her. “I can see the way he looks at you and acts around you. He's gentle with you and he looks at you like you're the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Which, given who he is, must be pretty rare.”

            Elizabeth blushes and mindlessly touches her newly gifted locket. “Well, it has only been five-hundred years. If that's the case, then I believe he is going for some kind of record.”

            Nathan makes a face of disbelief, finding it hard to understand what she said. “You're trying to tell me in all of the years you two have known each other, not once have you acted on your feelings?”

            Elizabeth goes to shrug her shoulders, but she finds it difficult to do so in her dress. “He believes he's trying to protect me. He thinks that if he lets me get too close, I'll die or he'll lose me... Which, I suppose is an appropriate fear given the life we live. However, I think we've made a pretty big step into the right direction tonight. I think he gave me this locket to ensure I'm his for when he is ready.”

            Nathan laughs under the loud music and he makes a gesture to invite her for a dance, but the appearance of another man standing beside them has Elizabeth freezing. He wears a mask, much like most of the party attendees, but she recognizes the blue eyes that stare back at her. Inhaling sharply, she watches as a grin pulls onto his face and her heart begins to beat harder. Nathan can see who he is too and his eyes widen with fear, unsure of what to say or do.

            “You’ve changed quite a bit, Lizzie,” Charles says. “How nice it is to finally see you in person again.”

            “What the hell are you doing here?” Nathan demands, the voice he had so often used in the military coming out as his eyes pierce into his father’s.

            “I could ask you the same question, my son. Fraternizing with the abominations… I thought I had raised you better than this,” Charles growls.

            Feeling angry, Elizabeth redirects his attention back to herself. “What the hell are you doing here? Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill you right now?”

            Charles laughs, folding his hands together as his eyes roam her face. Even hearing his laugh makes her skin crawl with disgust. “You wouldn’t dare to lay a finger on me when you know nothing of Lyanna’s plans,” he says confidently. “I’m here to deliver a warning.”

            “What is it then?” Elizabeth demands, feeling the venom in her voice.

            At the raising of his hand, the sharp shrill of a blood-curdling scream tears through the party. Elizabeth turns around to look for the source as the crowd begins to tear apart and disperse in every which way as Charles slips away. On instinct, she reaches back for Nathan’s arm and pulls him forcibly close to her body in order to keep him protected. All of the party attendees run and grab for their loved ones as more screams tear through the Abattoir, making it hard for her to understand, let alone see, what’s happening. Speeding right by her is a familiar face and she reaches out to stop Rebekah by grabbing her bicep, jerking forward from the force of her run.

            “Rebekah, what’s going on?” Elizabeth asks frantically. Her eyes dart between the many different and unrecognizable faces around her. “Charles was here. He said he's here to deliver a warning.”

            The youngest Mikaelson looks over her shoulder towards the main entrance, her heart hammering with anticipation and worry. “This may be a bit obvious, but I believe we are under attack.”

            Suddenly, making their faces be seen, vampires lurk amongst the crowd and they move at impossible speeds to block the exits, making sure escape is entirely impossible. On the second floor, men and women stand against the banisters with their hands raised. Their palms face what’s left of the crowd and as Latin incantations flow from their mouths, Elizabeth cries out in pain. A rubber band snaps around her brain and she screams as her knees buckle. Her hands fly up to her temples and she clenches her jaw closed, groaning against the fire. With what little vision she has left, she watches helplessly as Nathan is torn away from her by two men who bare their fangs threateningly. Rebekah crawls over to her through her agony, unable to think or talk through the fire in her head. They watch in horror as the people around them have their hearts torn from their chests.

            “W-Where’s… Where is K-Klaus?” Elizabeth asks through her short gasps. Her heart feels as if it is beating lopsidedly and her brain feels like it is exploding over and over again. She would never wish this pain on her worst enemy.

            Rebekah does not get the opportunity to respond. Four hands grab Elizabeth’s shoulders, tearing the delicate sleeve of her dress, jerking her back and away from the Original. She struggles against their hold, dazed and incapable of making sense of anything through her blinding pain. The men force her to her knees and she slumps over to the left, barely conscious. Then, as if it were never there, the pain vanishes. Exhaling roughly and raggedly, she growls. Struggling against the men that hold her, she watches as the room clears. The only people who remain in the middle are Nathan and the men that hold him still. He is bloody and beaten, his head drooping. Forming a circle, the attackers stand and look blankly at the scene before them. It’s almost as if they’re brainless. On the other side of the room with snapped necks lie, Rebekah and Klaus, lifeless.

            “Elizabeth, we’ve come to deliver a personal message to you from Charles and Lyanna,” a woman says loudly from the second floor. Elizabeth looks up to meet the woman’s eyes as she climbs up to stand on the banister railing.

            “What do they want?” She asks stupidly through a tightly wound jaw. She should know the answer to that question by now. It always comes back to her.

            “You are not untouchable. Wherever you are, no matter who stands by your side, they will find you,” she says ominously. “You will not laugh in their faces. You will submit.”

            Growling, Elizabeth cannot stop her true face from showing. She is livid. “Or what?” She spats hotly, her tone laced with white-hot anger than burns from within her.

            She regrets the question as soon as it leaves her mouth. The woman smiles and lifts a hand up, pointing to Nathan who can barely keep himself on his feet. Elizabeth widens her eyes and she shakes her head, silently begging for mercy before she can even find the words within herself, her face contorted. This cannot happen.

            “Or more will die,” the woman replies with a cruel laugh.

            In a single second, Elizabeth watches in horror as Nathan’s heart is torn from his chest. She shakes her head as they throw his body to the floor. Realization sets in. _Dead_. Crying out in agony, she feels a wave of grief slam into her. She thrashes against the men that hold her and when they release her, she is by Nathan’s body in an instant.

            “No, no… p-please…” She sobs loudly.

            Breaking down, she pulls his lifeless body into her lap and she takes a shaking hand to the side of his face. He is bloody and his blood soaks through her dress, but she cannot bring herself to care. Cradling him, she sobs and begs for him to wake up. Everything around her fades as she stares at him, unable to think about anything else. _Dead_. She could have stopped them… she… _blood…_ she did this to him… _dead._ She presses her forehead to his as she sobs, struggling to breathe. Her dress is too tight. Screaming, she hugs him. It hurts. Everything hurts. She… _killed…_ Murdered.

            Long minutes pass by and as the room empties, Klaus and Rebekah jerk awake. Rebekah is the first to see what has happened and she gasps at the sight, her heartbreaking. Reaching out for her brother’s shoulder, she points dejectedly.

            “Nik,” she breathes wearily. “They killed him.”

            Klaus looks up and over to the center of the room with anger coursing through his veins from his previous attack, but it all is quickly replaced with guilt. He did this. He should have listened. Getting to his feet, he runs to Elizabeth in a blur. Her face is stained with tears and runny makeup, her eyes never moving from Nathan’s lifeless face. He does not say anything to her. Instead, he reaches out and touches her shoulder. Together they sit, never saying a word. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to leave you guys on such a cliff hanger, but I am currently leaving to go on a camping trip! I honestly didn't want this chapter to go down how it did, but it had to happen for other things to happen. See you soon!
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos and I appreciate everyone who is reading this. It means the world to me. -Jade


	15. Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Struggling with her grief, Elizabeth finds that everyone around her is suffering from similar waves of regret and guilt. Later, Klaus finally faces her and in that moment, something drastic changes.

Humanity.

            There are many strings attached to it. There’s happiness, love, anger, and in the darkest parts resides grief. It’s a pain that is so unimaginable; one that takes over every single passing thought and one that makes it hard to know if happiness will ever be felt again. In truth, grief never really leaves a person once they find their footing again. It simply becomes easier to manage, but it’s always there in the back of the mind. It comes out in the lowest points and it destroys everything in its path. When it all becomes too much, it would be easy to turn it all off and not an hour goes by where she doesn’t consider it. At what point does the grief become too much? It never ends and the guilt swallows her whole. At what point does the horrors she has been through make it okay to turn it all off and live a life without pain?

            It hurts. The images of his heart being torn from his chest are burned into her mind, like a brand that will never go away or fade with time. It’s a deep wound and it’s festering. She knows her family would understand if she took the easy way out. Klaus would be there to guide her, Elijah would be her conscience, and Rebekah would be the damage control. They would help her and be the hands in her life to make sure she doesn’t fall further off the edge. In the end, it would be them who pull her back. Nevertheless, she denies the urges that burn in the back of her mind. She has to see this fight through this and as she lifts his body into her arms, she opens her eyes and exhales slowly.

            “He deserved better than this.”

            Elizabeth shakily lowers his body into his casket and she blinks rapidly to stave off her tears. She has done enough crying to last her another lifetime. Forcing the breath out from her lungs, she rests her hand on his chest and she shuts her eyes once more to will herself to not remember him as the tormented memory he has become, but as the man who was so full of life and joy.

            “I never should have invited him. He was safer with Damon and Stefan in New York,” Rebekah says quietly. “His blood is on my hands. I am terribly sorry for the pain that this has caused you.”

            Wiping an escaped tear with the back of her hand, Elizabeth pulls Nathan’s dog tags out from her pocket. She leans forward and rests them around his neck where they belong. It made her heart shatter when she found them thrown across the floor not too far away from where he died. She stood near them for several long minutes until she finally found the strength to pick them up and now they're back where they belong. 

            “They would have found him. Even with Freya’s protection spells, Lyanna would have found a way,” She disagrees weakly. “Nathan put everything on the line for me. He was married and was expecting a baby and I repaid him with death.”

            Rebekah bends down to leave a single red rose on his chest, admiring how tragically perfect it looks; the tux Elijah put him in suits him well. She then straightens his tie and turns her gaze back up to Elizabeth who looks as if she hasn’t slept or fed for the past three days.

            “What happened to Nathan wasn’t your fault, Liz. If you want to blame somebody, blame me and my idiotic brother,” Rebekah says sternly. “Had we left him, Damon and Stefan would have kept him safe. We risked his life and it ended horribly.”

            With the all too familiar signs anger and grief washing back into her eyes, Elizabeth shakes her head and slams the lid to the casket closed. “It’s my mess that got him killed. Lyanna is _my_ sister. Charles is obsessed with _me_ ,” she spars hastily. “They wanted him dead to prove a point and they got what they wanted. Warning received.”

            Rebekah puts her hands on her hips and she glares at Elizabeth for her relentless need to blame herself for something she couldn’t predict, nor control. “Up until a few months ago, you had no idea Lyanna was even alive. None of us did and we certainly did not expect her to come back after Nik killed her. Yes, she and Charles had him killed, but the fault does not rest upon you. If that were true, I would be responsible for every single person Nik has killed,” she says fiercely. “We cannot control our siblings, no matter how dark they become. They got what they wanted, but that does not mean we have to back down. We will continue to fight and we _will_ avenge Nathan’s death.”

            Elizabeth blinks at the youngest Original, caught off guard by the passion and strength that supports her words. Looking away, she nods her head and forces herself to calm down. "You’re right. I just wish it didn’t have to be this way. Nathan got caught in the crossfire and somehow, I have to learn to be okay with that.”

            “You are a strong woman, Liz. You have suffered from many tragedies and here you stand today, stronger than ever,” Rebekah reminds her. “It’s bad enough Nik is upset and angry. The last thing we need is the family falling apart because of the things that are happening. As soon as we figure out what’s going on, we will put a stop to all of it and make them suffer.”

            “Do I even want to know what Klaus has been doing while I’ve been handling my grief?” She asks slowly. “I’ve hardly seen him.”

            Rebekah huffs and moves to cross her arms over her chest. “He’s absolutely livid that Charles managed to slip in. He has half a mind to march to his facility now and rip his worthless heart out, but Elijah is forcing him to keep his cool. Although the idea is tempting, we can’t afford any outbursts from anyone.”

            Drawing her eyebrows together, Elizabeth pushes Nathan’s casket into the slot in the wall where it will later be covered by his plaque and bricks. “We have to be smart about this, even if it means making sacrifices we can’t afford to make. Nathan was much more than a friend to me and I _hate_ that I wasn’t fast enough to save him,” she says angrily. "I won't lose anyone else." 

            The switch is burning again, begging to be flipped. She gives one last look to Nathan’s casket before turning on her heel to leave the cemetery, passing by a few witches who stare at her with wide eyes. Her humanity is one of the things that make her who she is, but it is also the one thing that makes her suffering feel so unbearable. She would give anything to not feel the grief and guilt, but she knows that’s what Charles would want. He wants her to turn her switch because then, everyone would be focused on her and not on the problems at hand. She won’t give him the satisfaction. She spent nearly eleven years denying him and she’s not afraid to do it for eleven more.

            She runs her fingers along the bumpy wall as she walks down the dusty stone steps, listening to the sounds of groaning and yelling that comes from the basement. When she enters, she finds a saddening scene and it makes her heart sink even lower than it had been already. Freya has her hand stuck out to Marcel with a book in her hand and she chants incantations to him over and over again. Marcel sits on his knees on the floor with his arms chained high above his head and he growls viciously at her, his eyes filled with a wild frenzy. Davina, who is sweating from how hard she is working, does the same to Kol and he yells at her every time she starts a new incantation. He looks as if he wants to kill her for what she is doing to her; like this is not the woman he married or the woman he loves more than anything.

            Elizabeth walks up to them slowly, unsure of how to approach all of them when they seem so busy. As Marcel and Kol have both been programmed to kill her, she thought it would be best to stay away until they are fixed, but she needed to see the damage for herself. Now that she sees it, it makes her gut twist into uncomfortable knots. Freya pauses when she feels her presence behind her and she turns with an apprehensive smile on her face.

            “Marcel is just about done. Lyanna must have spent days doing this to him,” she says with a touch of optimism. “Kol might take a little longer. I cannot imagine the pain this must have caused them. Lyanna mangled their minds. Up until last night, I was unsure if there was even a mind to tweak anymore.”

            Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest, her eyes skimming over Marcel’s tired and worn out face. “I can understand how she managed to do this to Marcel but to alter the mind of an Original? That scares me.”

            Freya nods, glancing over to Kol. “With enough power, anything is possible. Magic is what brought vampires to life and it will be magic that brings them down,” she says grimly. “I just wish I knew _how_ Lyanna possesses enough power to do this to them and do what she did to the minds of the party attendees a few nights ago.”

            “My family was full of powerful witches. My father was the best Walker Witch they had ever known,” Elizabeth recalls. “He wanted to pass his talents down to Lyanna and me, but I never practiced. They would spend hours in training. One day, Lyanna’s powers fell into place and she became twisted.”

            Giving up on the question for now as she cannot spend much time dwelling on it, Freya turns back to Marcel to resume her work. Elizabeth walks off and she finds herself by Davina, whose hands are trembling from the weight of the spell she is working through. The two of them have hardly had any time to speak to each other since all of this has started. She feels awful for what happened to Kol and struggles with knowing what to say. Her eyes move to Kol and she presses her lips together in a thin line. It has been a long while since she has seen him.

            “I had no idea he was even alive,” she says quietly.

            Nodding slightly as she breaks off from the spell, Davina stares at her husband with a troubled look in her eyes. He growls and pulls against the chains that keep him in his place, barring his fangs at Elizabeth. It's almost as if everything that makes him who he is has been twisted around and forced into a singular train of thought: Hunt and kill. 

            “It was pretty complicated for a while. I’m just worried I won’t be able to fix him,” she admits. “His mind is much more damaged than Marcel’s. I think he fought back for weeks until she finally broke him.”

            “If there is anyone who can fix him, it’s going to be you and Freya. You two are some of the strongest witches I know.”

            Sighing, Davina flips to a new page in her grimoire and struggles between wanting to throw everything she has at Kol and wanting to go easy on him as she knows what kind of pain this is causing him. “All we’ve really seen so far from Lyanna and Charles is a lot of talk and very little action. What if corrupting Marcel and Kol and killing Nathan is a tool they’re using to keep us distracted?”

            “As redundant as it sounds, we won’t know something until we know something,” Elizabeth says wearily. “I’m so sorry this is happening.”

            “It’s not right. None of this is right. I shouldn’t have let him walk out of home that night,” Davina says brokenly. “He wouldn’t be going through this if I just stopped him.”

            Elizabeth swallows thickly and hugs her arms around herself as she meets the true eyes that belong to Kol. If there is one common emotion that has been following her around today, it has to be regret. The things Lyanna and Charles have done to them so far seem so small compared to the things that she fears is coming, but their actions still left behind devastating damage in their wake. Their own family has been turned against them, some of which have already died. She agrees with what Davina said. It’s not right. None of this should be happening and she is left wondering if it was her actions that brought this all on in the first place. Was it wrong to kill Lyanna? Should she have tried harder to escape? She will never know.

            “We have to keep pushing forward until we get ahead of this,” she says after a long pause. “Lyanna is trying to keep up preoccupied while she goes after her real goal. We can’t chase after her if we’re busy fighting our own family or grieving the ones we have lost. All we have to do is wait for a break.”

            Wordlessly, she turns to the old stairs and begins to climb them as her mind swamps around her like a plague. The guilt she feels for what happened to Nathan, the regret that burns so hotly inside of her and the determination she thrives on to end this is starting to harden her. At this point, after everything she has been through in her long life, she is beginning to wonder if it will ever be possible for her to feel normal again. Can she find peace in her life after this is all over? Or will she find that she has to dig more graves for her loved ones? It’s not a thought she wants to spend too much time on and to escape it, she gently touches her locket. She knows all too well that even after Charles and Lyanna are handled, something will come out of the shadows afterward to start a new war.

            No matter where this fight leads them, she has to believe they will come out on top. There is going to be a lot of pain, she knows that much, and through that pain, they will find Lyanna’s weakness and the reason for her sudden life. Few have succeeded in taking down the Mikaelsons and although Lyanna is strong, although Charles is sadistic and evil, they will not go down without fighting to protect those that they love.

            She stands on the balcony with bare feet and a heavy weight on her heart. She watches the festivities that take place on the streets near the compound and on her lips resides a discreet smile. There is a distinct chill in the air tonight, one that sends chills running up her spine. She should shield herself from it and she would if she had the motivation to move, but she keeps herself firmly in her place in fear of ruining a rare moment of peace. The events from three nights ago did not go the way she hoped they would. In the back of her mind, she knows she and everyone else involved were in way over their heads. She lost a friend last night, the last living member of her makeshift family who had not been touched by darkness. She swore to protect him and she watched as he died in front of her. _Fault_. _Blame_. _Guilt_.

            Her fingers wrap around the locket that rests around her neck. She’s searching for anything inside of her that feels real. Everything in her mind has been touched by the grief, but there has to be _something_ that hasn’t been destroyed. Desperately, she wishes she could take back the last seventy-two hours. It was all going well and although her gut was screaming at her, although it was begging her to listen to the obvious signs, she ignored it all. Her actions cost her the life of a friend and no matter how passionately she wishes she could take it all back, she must find a way to live with it now. To have a friend, a human friend of all things, in this life is dangerous. She should have done the right thing and pushed him away the minute she got free to protect him. She will never be able to take back her mistakes and one day, she will be able to move on from this, but not tonight.

            “How did I know I would find you out here?”                                              

            The sound of his gentle voice sends butterflies fluttering in her stomach, but she does not react to it. A light blanket is wrapped warmly around her shoulders and she smiles as she sees the familiar plaid pattern out of the corner of her dark eyes. It hadn’t occurred to her that she has been crying until a breeze blows by and she feels the cold wetness on her face. Sniffling, she wipes it away.

            “You’re back,” she comments softly. “Did you come out here on your own or did Rebekah have an influence on this impromptu visit?” She then asks, her voice uneven.

            Klaus leans up against the railing beside her, just close enough for her body to feel the warmth of his own. “You say that as if I never come to check in on you,” he remarks. He doesn’t even try to hide that he is offended by her accusation.

            Elizabeth thinks back to all the moments Klaus has personally devoted some of his scattered time to her. Most of those moments exhibited the rarely seen side of him that he tries so hard to keep buried and it’s because of those moments that she knows the act that he tries so hard to keep up with is only a façade. He _is_ kind and he _is_ gentle and he has been like that with her since the start. It would have been entirely too easy for him to kill her the night they met and lord knows he wanted to, but he stopped himself and he allowed her to live. She knows him better than anyone because, at the end of the day, he loves her and she, irrevocably, loves him.

            “I’ll have you know that my little sister had nothing to do with me coming out to you tonight,” Klaus informs moments later. “She does not feel the same amount of guilt for what happened to you. Nathan’s blood is on my hands.”

            Elizabeth lets her eyes close for a brief second, allowing herself to wallow in the pain that she feels. Images of Nathan’s lifeless body and his pool of blood are branded into her mind and she cannot escape them although she tries her hardest. She wants to believe what Rebekah told her this morning, but it’s so hard to when her mind forces her to think another way. How can she not feel at fault for what happened? Hell, they all feel the same way and yet they cannot help but play ping-pong with the blame. She wouldn’t be surprised if Elijah joined in on the game and tried to blame himself because he wasn’t there to stop it.

            “It’s my fault, Klaus. The party was a bad idea, but I could have stopped it if I tried harder. I could have protected him.”

            Klaus remains silent beside her for a while, thinking about what she told him. He’s battling his guilt for what he did and the pain he feels for the woman beside him. In these heartbreaking moments, he often finds it difficult to know what to say, but tonight, with her, he thinks he knows.

            “No one promised that the life we live would be easy, love. We have seen and done many terrible things in our time on this earth. The hardships that we face are the ones that we will carry with us forever and pass on to those that we meet,” he says softly with a touch of sadness in his voice. “Losing Nathan… the fault rests on all of us, but on no one no more than me. I should have listened to you and in my ignorance, I cost you the life of a friend. Had Elijah not convinced me to do otherwise, I would have returned to you with Charles’ heart in my hands.”

            She has heard this tone before, but never so raw and free of restraint. It can be so easy to forget that Klaus has lost many people he cared about and has done things that he carries a heavy weight of regret for. Although he often reacts in violent and heartless behavior, there is still a side of him that hurts and feels the pain for what has happened or for what he has done to others. They’ve all done things they cannot take back. They are all monsters; the very things people fear and hate so much. She sighs quietly and keeps her eyes firmly fixed on the festivities on the streets, trying to keep herself distracted so she doesn’t fall apart again. Klaus takes it upon himself to lean forward just enough to see the warm expression on her face. A quick smile stretches onto his face as he returns to his place, a smile she could view all day if given the chance.

            “You have lived for five-hundred years and yet the simplest pleasures of a city festival still being a smile to your delightful face,” he teases. “I’m starting to understand why Rebekah likes having you around so much.”

            Finally, Elizabeth tears her eyes away from the streets to face Klaus. “You of all people should know why I hold festivities and the holidays so close to my heart,” she reminds him lightly. “You are the person who changed them for me forever.”

            Klaus stands up straight and rests his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them gently for reassurance. “Had you not charmed me and then went off to get yourself killed, we wouldn’t be standing here today. You are most lucky I gave you my blood in time,” he says with a wicked grin.

            “Has anyone told you that you are incredibly morbid?” She asks with a laugh.

            Klaus laughs too, but he looks down not a moment later. “This not too far away from the time of year I lost you,” he reminisces. “And now it seems that it has been touched with the death of your friend.”

            Elizabeth nods, remembering the grief that presses down on her. She has lost people before, but somehow this feels different. “We have a pretty shitty track record if you think about it,” she jokes morbidly.

            Klaus laughs quietly and drops his hands from her shoulders to gesture to her room. “If you would be so kind as to join me back in your room, I did have a reason for being here. I cannot bring Nathan back, but I believe I can improve your mood.”

            She wants nothing more than to stay out on the balcony where she can be alone with her thoughts, but Klaus does not give her the time to reject his offer. Instead, he grabs her by the hand and drags her in through the door. On a small tray on her bed, there are two mugs full of hot chocolate and one has a little pile of whipped cream on it. Her heart swells with an unrecognizable happiness and her eyes dart to Klaus’, looking for an explanation. This is, once again, another rare sighting of the man he truly is.

            “Hope had some say in this. She knows how upset we all are and she insisted that I make yours with what she called an ‘appropriate amount’ of whipped cream,” Klaus explains with a fond smile. “I do care about your wellbeing a great deal, Elizabeth. You do not deserve the torment you are going through when you have been nothing but kind to everyone you have met in your life. You are full of light and I will see to it that the spark inside of you is protected.”

            “How do you do that?” She asks, pulling the blanket off of her to rest it on her desk. “Rebekah said you were pissed off and about ready to kill Charles yourself and yet you seem perfectly under control.”

            “My priorities have taken precedence over my anger,” he says simply. “Charles and your dreadful sister will die in due time. I have made promises to you and I intend to keep them.”

            With numb legs, Elizabeth walks over to her bed and climbs on top clumsily. Klaus takes the open spot beside her against the headboard and he pulls her, unexpectedly, as close as their bodies will allow. Carefully, he hands her a mug while he keeps the other for himself and if she were not so enchanted by how nice this feels, she would point out how truly silly it is for Klaus Mikaelson, of all people, to be drinking hot chocolate in the middle of a large bed. Granted, his mug is more than likely to be spiked.

            “The past three days have been awful,” she admits as she takes her first sip. Whatever he did to make the drinks, they turned out extremely good and it fills her chest with warmth. “Everyone is blaming themselves for the things that have happened. I just want to stop for a few minutes so I can remember what it’s like to feel like a person again.”

            Klaus drinks from his mug, tasting the rum he slipped into his when Hope wasn’t looking. He wears a truly tired expression on his face and he knows exactly how she feels. He can hardly remember the last time he felt normal. “I think we all need a few minutes to catch up with ourselves.”

            Reaching, Elizabeth sets her mug on the nightstand. She twists to look at him, her eyes getting lost in his just as they have done time and time again. For this single moment, she feels oddly brave and she’s not sure what her body is doing until it happens. She’s kissing him. Once, twice… three times. The softness of his lips draws her in and now that she has tasted him, she knows she will never get enough of this feeling. His hands are everywhere on her body. Up her back, down her arms, and eventually tangled in her thick hair. She kisses him harder until she is straddled upon his lap and he slides his hands underneath her shirt to feel all of her curves. He cranes his neck upwards and his lips find a home against her flushed cheek. His touch is light and electric, sending shivers throughout her body. His kiss takes her breath away and she struggles to keep up with herself, becoming completely blind by how it feels to have him against her.

            Sighing in their shared kiss, she shamelessly slides her hands underneath his shirt. Against her fingertips, she feels his muscles and the small, hardly noticeable scars he picked up in his human life. Making her gasp, Klaus rolls them over and pushes her deeper into the mattress. Hiking her right leg up to his hip, he deepens their kiss and he squeezes her side, looking for anything to latch onto. Pulling at him, she grasps either side of his jacket and forces him against her, mixing their heat and cravings for each other. Breathing in deeply, she loses herself in his scent and finds herself wishing for this moment to never end. Sadly, it is Klaus that separates from her and he looks down at her lust blown eyes, admiring the redness of her lips. For a while, they say nothing. She reaches up to touch him, whereas he draws imaginary lines from her jaw down to her collarbone.

            “That was a half a millennium overdue,” Klaus breathes, his fingers skimming over the exposed skin of where her shirt rides up her back.

            Elizabeth smiles softly, but she cannot help but feel a pinch of sadness. “What happens now?” She asks quietly.

            Klaus knows exactly what she is asking. He has spent the entire time they have known each other holding her at bay in fear of what could happen to her if she got this close and now that they have crossed all lines, there is simply no going back. They cannot erase what happened between them only minutes before and they cannot pretend it didn’t happen. The love they feel for each other is free to be shown now and it feels just like it’s supposed to. Perfect.

            “I only have one option left, sweetheart,” he says simply. “For as long as you wear that locket, for as long as you want me, I will do everything in my power to protect you. You are mine.”

            Sitting up, Elizabeth forces him to sit down in front of her, but she does not pull away from his touch. She keeps his hand on her waist and she does not move her hand away from his other. The thought of not touching him right now puts too much stress on her mind. He's bringing her the comfort she has needed since she returned home. To be with him likes this feels different from the many hugs and light touches she has received in the past few months. It feels right and it puts a temporary bandage over the cracks in her mind. 

            "Out of all the times we could have chosen to do this, this is probably one of the worst," she says grimly. "Lyanna will find a way to use this against us if she hasn't figured out a way already." 

            Klaus puts his index finger over her lips to stop her from talking as he doesn't want to think about Lyanna or what she may or may not do. Much more has been put into jeopardy now, he knows that, but he will not allow the decision to finally be together to be made under the weight of regret.  Drawing his hand back, he leans forward and kisses her slowly until the only thing she can think about is how at peace she feels in his hold. This is how they're supposed to be and nothing will take that from them. Not now, not ever, not for as long as they live. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from my trip! Thank you to everyone who is reading. There is still so much to come and even more drama will be packed into the sequel which will feature story lines I couldn't get to in this book. I hope all of you will read this through to the end and will still enjoy this story when its over. :)
> 
> As for this chapter, it finally looks like Klaus and Elizabeth are an item! The slow burn of this story has reached it's end and we can now enjoy the angst that comes from being in a relationship in the middle of a fight/war. This chapter was a little back and forth with the whole blame thing, but it's natural to go through that and given what happened and how it happened, it was important to establish who was at fault for it. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos. See you in a couple of days! (Uploads will become a little more consistent when I make a little more progress on the sequel. I want to get as far in the writing as I can to maintain an upload schedule.)


	16. On the Mend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As tensions begin to rise, two familiar faces return to the family. 
> 
>  
> 
> CHAPTER WARNING (SPOILERS):  
> This chapter includes smut that will occur towards the end of the chapter. You may skip it if you wish, but make sure you read the last few paragraphs of the chapter as they are incredibly important to the story (There will be a divider to make the scene change clear). I believe this is the most smut that will be in this story because I found that it was not incredibly important to the story, but there will for sure be more in the sequel. :)

Elijah walks with a rarely seen tormented scowl on his face, his umbrella held tightly in his gloved hands.

            Elizabeth watches him carefully, paying attention to the subtle changes in his focused and angry eyes. She pulls her hood of her rain jacket over her head when the rain begins to pick up speed. A light wind blows past her and she shivers, managing to snag Elijah’s attention away from the path they are following. He frowns and slows his pace to hold the umbrella comfortably over both of their heads. She smiles lightly, but it’s clear she is a little caught off guard by this sudden adventure into the Bayou. Not a sound can be heard around them except for the rain falling on the ground and through the leaves of the tress. On any other given day, they could usually hear the chatter from the wolf packs, but even their voices have been silenced. It’s haunting. Stepping over a fallen tree branch, Elizabeth carefully skirts around a mud puddle and looks back up at Elijah.

            “Okay, normally I would love to go on a walk with you, but I can’t help but feel like you’re taking me out here to kill me,” she says abruptly, unsure if she should have disturbed the silence or not. For as long as she has known him, she knows by now that to see Elijah visibly upset is something of rarity and when he gets like this, it’s usually over something awful.

            “I can assure you that if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t do it like this,” he jokes lightly, but he also manages to make himself sound completely serious. “There is something out there that I thought you should see before we get it cleaned up.”

            Making a face of bewilderment, she looks around at the various trees and footprints in the mud, trying to understand what he’s alluding to. When she comes up empty yet again, she decides to give up for the time being as she knows it will all make much more sense when they arrive at whatever mystery location he is dragging her to. Huffing, she decides to change the topic to something lighter.

            “I miss talking to you. We’ve both been so busy,” she says openly, trying to provoke him into joining in on the conversation. His silence is starting to worry her.

            Elijah looks at her and smiles softly, be he does feel saddened by how little time they have had to spend together since she came back home. “The timing of Lyanna’s plans is impressively inconvenient,” he agrees. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

            Elizabeth tilts her head to the side slightly, now heavily curious. "We have some time now if you want to talk about it."

            Opening his mouth to speak, Elijah pauses and appears to struggle with finding the right words to say.  Now a little bit concerned, Elizabeth looks to him with a frown. Elijah has always been a fluent person and hardly struggles with speaking his mind, but now he almost seems nervous.

            “Hayley,” he finally says and it seems speaking her name is all he could force himself to say.

            “What about her?” She asks, stuffing her hands into her pockets casually.

            “She and I have been together for quite some time now,” he explains. “I know the timing is horrifically wrong, but I’ve been considering it for a while. I wanted to get your opinion on the matter before I go through with it. You seem to have a level head on your shoulders.”

            “Get my opinion on what?” She asks, but she then stops walking abruptly when the answer to her question clicks. With wide eyes full of surprise, she looks to the man beside her. “Oh, wow. Elijah, I doubt you need my opinion. You love her so much.”

            “I do not allow myself to love easily, which is why I was so conflicted when I first saw Hayley,” he then says, making a gesture for them to keep walking. “I figured you would understand the most given how long it took for my brother to come around. We’ve lost many people and I fear that if I do this, I may lose her.”

            Understanding where he is coming from, Elizabeth gently touches the back of his shoulder in an attempt to bring him comfort. “You are a Mikaelson. No matter where you go or what you do, the danger will follow. I know you get that. However, that shouldn’t stop you from being with the one you love. Ask her, Elijah. You’ll never forgive yourself if the chance passes you by.”

            “Out of all of the reasons why people fear you, I would like to think your ability to talk someone out of their own incompetence is the highest-ranking,” he says, taking her words to heart.

            "You're hilarious," she says blandly. "Seriously, Elijah. I think it would be great and I know it would make her happy. She loves you."

            "We're almost there," he says. "If you wouldn't mind, I would like to keep this conversation between us. We can talk about it again after your sister and Charles are handled."

            "Of course."

            For a little while longer, they walk side by side. Every once in awhile, Elizabeth will step out from under the umbrella to assess the area and she keeps coming up with nothing out of the ordinary. She feels as if they have been trudging through the rain and mud for an hour now and she knows that's probably not too far away from the truth. In the back of her head, she starts to wonder if Elijah took her all the way here for nothing, but then that would contradict his seemingly angry mood. It simply doesn’t make sense. Crossing her arms over her chest, she is about to ask again when she catches a particular scent in the air that makes her face contort in disgust. Rot. Clamping her hand over her nose and mouth so she doesn't lose her breakfast, she begins to recognize what kind of rot she is smelling. Flesh.

            Coming up on a small clearing in the path, she spots Hayley and Freya standing near each other as they look at the issue on the ground. With slit throats and limbs torn from their bodies lies thirteen men and woman and it's apparent that they have been here for a few days, soaking in the constant rain. She looks at each of their faces, dropping her hand to her side as shock overcomes her.

            "What the hell happened?" She asks, unable to look away from the massacre.

            "This was a pack of wolves," Hayley answers. "One of our new arrivals."

            Elizabeth carefully steps around one of the bodies and turns her attention to Hayley, struggling to grasp what could have done this. "An entire pack? Jesus Christ..."

            "One of the alphas from the local packs went looking for them this morning when their alpha didn't show up to the meeting," she explains. "Their pack was one of kind. Full of some of the oldest wolves."

            Freya takes a step forward and squats down to one of the bodies, pulling back his shirt to reveal a sigil that had been burned into his flesh just above his heart. "This was a sacrifice. The rain we've been having isn't because of a sudden change in the weather. It's because of dark magic."

            Although she suspected it upon reaching the sight, it still makes her stomach flip over to hear it confirmed. "Lyanna did this."

            Freya nods, looking sadly at all of the bodies. "She's trying to gain more power. Whatever she is doing, it’s incredibly dark and it's starting to interfere with the other witch's ability to practice. There's something in the air and I don't know what it is."

            “What do we do about this, then?” She asks, unsure if she wants to hear the answer or not. Something like this never should have happened.

            “I give this pack a proper burial. I have other packs on the way to come help,” Hayley says sadly. “Past that, I have no idea.”

            Elizabeth lowers her eyes to the bodies once again, feeling like she is somehow at fault for this. She should have known Lyanna would do something as horrific as this sooner or later. It was ignorant of her to think her sister would only spend her time messing with her and her family. Lyanna has an agenda and it’s slowly starting to take more and more lives.

            “What’s near this location?” She asks. “I doubt Lyanna killed a pack of wolves for nothing. There has to be a reason for this.”

            Elijah gestures down the path that continues on for what seems like miles. “There’s an old stone altar not too far from here. Other than that, there is only farmland and more Bayou.”

            Elizabeth weighs the possibility in her mind, squinting her eyes slightly. “See if you can figure out what that altar was when it was active. I’m willing to bet it has something to do with Lyanna’s plan.”

            “What are you going to do in the meantime?” Freya asks.

            “I want to call a meeting later so we can get everyone on the same page about this mess,” She answers stiffly. The smell of the rot has found her nose again and it’s starting to make her nauseous. “Until then, I’m headed back to the compound to clear my head.”

            “This is the third time you’ve called me this week, Liz,” Cami says with a touch of concern in her voice. “I’m starting to think you’re not handling this as well as you keep telling me you are.”

            Elizabeth nods her head tiredly, unable to disagree nor agree with her. She knows what kind of a shit show she has going on in her head and she knows it’s swallowing her whole, but something has changed deep within her. She hasn’t felt right since she broke down and she’s struggling with knowing if it’s a good thing or not. Is it numbness? Is her humanity fading? She has no idea. Adjusting herself on the couch, she brings her hand to her locket and she forces herself to take a deep breath. After what she saw this morning, she needs to remain calm.

            “I feel different and I don’t know what it means,” she admits. Even saying the words makes her feel pathetic.

            Cami takes a seat on the couch beside her, interested in what she has to say. Vampires who are struggling with their emotions is never a good thing, but she is fully aware Elizabeth is stronger than most. “Different how?”

            “I feel colder,” she attempts. "I'm not sure if that's the right word... When I used to think of Charles, I was terrified of him. Now, I feel indifferent. I still hate him and I want to kill him for the things he has done to me and the things he has done to others, but I'm not afraid anymore. And the shit that has been going on Lyanna, I should be terrified, but I'm not. This isn't bravery or anger..."

            Cami smiles softly and it's clear that she understands what's happening to her even though Elizabeth may not understand it herself. "You've adjusted. I know it might seem scary because you're not feeling like you think you should, but I think this is a good thing. You're not afraid anymore which means they have one less thing to use against you."

            "But that's not entirely true," she disagrees. "I am afraid. I'm afraid of what Lyanna is planning, I'm afraid of what Charles might do to my family if he gets his hands on any of us again."

            "Thinks of it this way, Liz. What you're feeling is perfectly normal. You're terrified for the people you love, but you're not longer terrified of what they might do to you because you know you can handle it now. You've been through some horrific things and look at where you are now."

            Elizabeth takes a deep breath and moves her hair away from her face. She's letting herself get worked up again. The answers she is searching for are right in front of her. "You would think after being what I am for as long as I have, I would have a better grip on my emotions. I'm just constantly drowning in guilt. What happened to Nathan was..." She trails off, unable to bring herself to speak the words.

            "Tragic," Cami finishes for her. "Nathan was a friend and you cared about him. It's tragic that he was killed and was taken away from you so soon. However, no matter how guilty you feel, his death was not caused by your actions. He was Charles' son. He was in danger the minute his father dragged him in for the job because his heart was pure."

            Refusing to let herself cry again, Elizabeth nods and closes her eyes for a moment to collect her thoughts. "I feel like I should be paying you. I talk to you more than Klaus does at this point," she sighs.

            Cami smiles and lightly touches Elizabeth's shoulder, feeling the wave of emotions she emits. "How are you two, by the way?"

            "We're good," she says with a smile. "I was worried it would be weird to finally be where we are, but it feels natural. We clicked right into place."

            "A fairy-tale romance," Cami jokes. "Well, maybe horror story."

            Elizabeth laughs and twists on the couch to face Cami, finding the glint of curiosity in her eyes. "I think once Charles and Lyanna find out, it's going to be trouble for us, but we're trying to enjoy it while we have it. We've needed each other for a long time."

            "He does seem happier. He would probably kill me if he knew I told you this, but you have been a popular topic during our sessions. I don't think I've ever seen someone care about a person so much as he does you."

            Blushing a little, she looks down and mindlessly touches her locket again. From the start, she knew what loving him would cost her and although it's good right now, although she gets to wake up with him right beside her in her bed and feel loved, she knows there is always something lurking in the shadows. Having a perfect life doesn't happen for vampires, especially vampires who are so deeply intertwined with the Original Family that they often mistake them for a Mikaelson as well. Time is precious and as an immortal, it can be easy to forget that.

            Elizabeth thumbs through the pages of an old lore book, looking for anything that can logically explain her sister’s surprise resurrection. Lyanna is not a doppelgänger, she’s not a vampire, she’s not some ancient immortal creature… She’s not _anything_ that makes any kind of sense. Groaning, she snaps the book closed and tosses it to the ever-growing pile on the coffee table. Frustrated, she closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, letting her head hang as she leans forward on her knees. If she has to read one more book on ancient magic, she fears her brain might rot out of her skull. Flopping back against the cushions, she stares into the fire absentmindedly, racking her brain for any details she may have missed the first thousand times she has done this.

            Hayley looks up from where she sits at the desk, her scribbling on her notebook coming to a slow and unsteady stop. She eyes the stack of books in front of Elizabeth and by the looks of it, she has read through almost all of the books Freya owns. Turning to Rebekah, she can tell that she is just as tired of the research as everyone else. They have run themselves into the ground by going through all of this over and over again.

            “Alright,” Hayley sighs. “What do we know so far?”

            Elizabeth reaches for her notebook and flips to the first page she started writing on hours ago. “My father was a powerful witch who trained Lyanna. She made her first kill about a week before she and I met Klaus and Elijah in 1515. I turned two years later and Lyanna basically went insane for another seven years after that,” she recalls. “We ended up killing her in 1524 when she attacked Elijah and nearly destroyed the state.”

            “From what I gathered from Freya,” Rebekah adds on, “it’s possible Lyanna found a way to siphon or take another witch’s magic to make herself more powerful. Why she is working with Charles and how she is alive remains unclear, which is painfully unhelpful.”

            Elizabeth rakes her fingers through her hair a few times before deciding to pull it back into a ponytail to get it out of her face. She stares down at her scribbles and notes, feeling like she’s missing something obvious written in between her notes. Something is staring her right in the face and she is missing it ever time. And she knows, somehow, the feeling of familiarity she keeps getting is not because of a thing or an event. It is, much rather, and emotion that she has felt before.

            “I spoke to Elijah and he spoke to the local witches,” Hayley says. “They’re not sure what’s going on, but they can feel something dark coming our way. One witch described it as a bad feeling and another said it was like a storm is coming.”

            Pursing her lips, Elizabeth stands from the couch and moves to stand near the fireplace that crackles and glows a dull orange. She stares into the flames, waiting for _something_ to click in her head. The feeling in the pit of her stomach is eating away at her, like it’s trying to claw it's away out of her. She hates it. She can go over everything she knows until she is blue in the face, but she keeps missing the one important detail that she feels as if she is blind to. What is she missing?

            “What I would really like to know is why the girls have been stuck doing the grunt work while the boys sit around waiting for something to happen,” Rebekah complains. “All except Elijah, of course. Which leaves Nik. What exactly is he doing in all of this? Sitting around and twirling his thumbs?”

            Hayley snicks, spinning around in the desk chair in a desperate attempt to entertain herself. “Past making sure Elizabeth doesn’t get her heart torn out by rogue vampires and Charles’ human hybrid? Not a clue.”

            Elizabeth looks over her shoulder, a smile stretching on her lips. “I could tell you, but you might want to rip your ears off afterward.”

            Rebekah’s jaw drops, excitement taking dominance over her boredom. “So, he’s finally pulled his head out of his ass, then?”

            “You could say that,” she agrees happily. “We’re taking it slow I think.”

            Suddenly, the doors to the study burst open and incomes two faces that had previously looked like they had been to hell and back. Rebekah stands from her spot beside the coffee table, her eyes nearly doubling in size.

“Marcel?” She asks, voice hesitant.

            Kol makes a face, glancing between Rebekah and Marcel in disgust. “And what am I to you, little sister? Chopped liver?” He asks, offended.

            Elizabeth turns around as Rebekah shrugs him off and she laughs quietly, pulling her hands out of her pockets. “I’m going to assume you two no longer want to rip my heart out?”

            Kol jumps over the back of the couch, coming to a graceful landing in front of her. “Oh, I think that’ll always be a compulsion of mine, but only because you’re shagging my painfully annoying older brother.”

            He pulls her in for a hug, holding her tightly in his arms. She squeezes his back and cannot stop herself from smiling a little against his shoulder. Back when they were all in Mystic Falls, she was so certain she would never see him again and now that he’s back, now that his head has been sorted and he is very much alive, she couldn’t be happier. When Kol wasn’t daggered or wasn’t fighting with his siblings, they were always the greatest of friends. In all honesty, they were a force to be reckoned with because of the trouble they would cause or get into. She misses those days and saying goodbye to them was hard, but now she as another opportunity. Hugging him tighter, she expresses all of her apologies silently and he accepts them, sending apologies of his own right back at her.

            “I’m sorry for what happened to you. It’s my mess,” she says quietly.

            “Not to rain on your parade or anything, but I believe it instantly became our problem the moment Nik decided he was going to torment you for half a millennium,” Kol says in a bland tone as he draws back, putting his hands on her shoulders gently.

            Marcel raises an eyebrow, raising his hand almost. “No, I’ll take that apology. Your sister gave me one hell of a headache.”

            Elizabeth looks to him sadly, her arms crossing over her chest. “I hate to pry the minute you’re free, but did you two manage to get any info?” She asks both of them. “Lyanna hasn’t given us anything to go on besides an old stone altar that _might_ be a part of her plan.”

            Marcel looks to Kol, who sighs and rests his head against the back of the couch after he flops back onto it. He then proceeds to drag a hand down his face, pausing briefly to rub his eyes. “Well, firstly… I would like to say that Charles is an absolute nut case,” he sighs. “Secondly, Lyanna is also a nut case. She’s working really hard to cover her tracks, as you know. Whatever she is up to, it’s bad.”

            Wrapping an arm around Rebekah’s waist, Marcel nods in agreement. “Kol had been there longer than me, but she didn’t say much to either of us while we were there. All she did was mess with our heads, give us a mission, and she sent us on our way with a message.”

            Hayley, furrows her eyebrows. “What was the message?”

            Kol lifts his head up, delivering a side glance to Elizabeth. “She wants us to stop poking at her plans. She wants us to stop trying to figure out how she’s alive and what she’s up to,” he says robotically. “Should we fail, then she and Charles will do more than just kill our friends. Nathan was just an example. None of us are untouchable. She can get to us any times she wants.”

            “She’ll start with our friends on the outside and work her way in,” Marcel says after. “She’ll kill everyone until it’s just Elizabeth and then she’ll send her back to Charles. She said that if we agree to her rules, she will back off only if we leave the light on in the study. If we reject her offer, she’ll make her next attack.”

            Elizabeth stares back at the two men, her voice seemingly lost to her. Unable to think of anything remotely coherent to say, she sits on the edge of the coffee table.

“Well, we can’t bloody stop and let her do whatever the hell she’s doing,” Rebekah protests. “Let her come.”

            “Rebekah…” Elizabeth sighs, her head hanging.

            “No, this is our fight. If she wants to threaten us, then I’d like to see how she responds when we all come at her at once,” Rebekah says heatedly.

            “Even if we stand our ground, we have no idea who she is going to attack next,” Elizabeth says. “She already killed Nathan _and_ she took out Marcel and Kol. Do we risk her killing Cami or putting Josh’s head on a pike? Do we risk Davina and Vincent?”

            Hayley stands from the desk only to plant her hands firmly on top of it and lean forward. “We can’t give up the fight either,” she says strongly. “The witches are afraid. Whatever Lyanna is doing is bad. She already slaughtered an entire pack of wolves I swore to protect.”

            “I’m not denying that,” Elizabeth argues. “But how do we fight them blindly and keep everyone safe?”

            Before a full-blown out argument can explode, Elijah walks into the room with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He looks between all of the faces that stare back at him, a look of subtle worry on his face. “We will not figure anything out if we keep fighting each other at every turn we make,” he advises. “We will not be surrendering, nor will we allow Lyanna to harm our family.”

            Elizabeth stands from the coffee table, her nerves running up and down her spine. “And how do we do that, Elijah? We have no idea where Lyanna is, who she is working with, or what her plans are. We are completely blind.”

            The eldest living Original nods his head once, acknowledging her worries. “The simplest solution would be moving our loved ones here so we can keep an eye on them,” he proposes. “A more complex plan would be to move our loved ones away. However, absolutely nothing will be solved in a single night. I would suggest a break from this.”

            Elizabeth sighs and looks down at her hands tiredly. Her head is spinning and it feels as if they can never catch a break. There is simply no right answer in this situation. All roads lead to the same destination, all roads lead to a conflict with Lyanna.

            Perched on the edge of her bed, Elizabeth rests her head in her hands. Through everything that has happened lately, she can at least be grateful Marcel and Kol are back to normal. At least now, their numbers are stronger and she can sleep soundly knowing that neither of them will try to rip her heart out in the middle of the night again. Sighing heavily, she stands and walks to her dresser where she takes off her unnecessary jewelry, leaving her daylight ring and the locket.  Removing her earrings, she eyes the locket in the mirror and smiles slightly. Things have changed so much in the past several months. Slowly, she wraps the belt of her robe around her middle and she tightens it to keep it securely around her.

            “Are you always so tense?” Klaus asks from the balcony doors.

            Elizabeth jumps at the sound of his voice, having not expected him to be there, and she clumsily bumps into the dresser. Her jewelry in the dish rattles and she turns to face him, a glare on her face. “A knock would have sufficed.”

            Klaus raises both hands in surrender, a smile slipping onto his face. “I get the feeling you would have been frightened either way, love,” he says. “You’ve been trapped in that pretty little head of yours for entirely too long.”

            Ignoring him, Elizabeth wanders into the bathroom where she grabs her hairbrush and pulls her hair from the ponytail it had been in. Carefully, she runs the brush through her hair stroke by stroke until she is forced to stop when Klaus turns her around by her waist. She looks up to him and sighs, looking between his two perfectly blue eyes.

            “I’ll assume you talked to Elijah?” She asks, reaching behind her to rest the hairbrush back on the countertop.

            Moving quick, Klaus bends down to kiss her lips. “You are not to mention anything relating to Lyanna or Charles for the rest of the night,” he says quietly. “Am I understood?”

            Elizabeth raises an eyebrow, a laugh bubbling from her lips. “Please tell me you’re not gonna start telling me what to do like we’re in the 1500s again?”

            Klaus silences her protests with a simple kiss and she can feel something in it that feels different. His hands snake around her waist and he pushes her back against the counter, keeping her perfectly trapped.

            “You are mine now, darling," he proclaims. "Everything is going to change.”

            “Do you always speak this cryptically?” She asks in a playful tone, knowing that it will push his buttons.

            Klaus sends her a loathsome look and he tightens his hold on her, making sure that she knows he is completely serious. “I have always held you at arm’s length to protect you. However, I am growing quite tired of denying what I want," he says truthfully. There’s a particular glint in his shining eyes, one that is full of hunger and craving. "I will give you one last chance. If you leave now, we will remain friends. Should you stay, I'm afraid you will be signing your death certificate."

            The choice is an easy one. She hardly has to think about it. Surging forward, she crashes her lips against his and he sighs with contentment, pleased she chose to stay. Grasping her body, he pulls her close and lifts her onto the counter. Willingly, she spreads her legs for him and pulls him close, capturing his lips once more. It really is silly, she thinks, that they held on for so long. At what point should they have realized it was not worth it? She doesn't know. Gently, she slides a hand into his hair and bites onto his bottom lip, pulling back just slightly. Klaus digs his fingers into her lower back, sighing into her mouth as she allows his tongue to dance with hers.

            “I’m staying…” She breathes, her lips skimming his jaw.

            Suddenly, she feels her bed beneath her and she opens her eyes to watch Klaus pull his shirt up and over his head. He climbs on top of her smoothly and with a gentle tug, he pulls the knot of her robe belt open and leaves a trail of kisses across her collarbone. Elizabeth digs her fingers into his back, needing to feel his body against her own for the first time. In the mere second before his delicate touch, every nerve in her body and brain is set on fire. She feels the anticipation of being with together with him, together in a way that is so tangible and stretches far beyond words. He is the drug that keeps her addicted. One touch and she is completely intoxicated.

            “Klaus,” she sighs quietly.

            Her soft voice is music to his hears and he smiles almost when he draws a line from her chin, down to her navel. They lock eyes for a single moment, just enough to feel safe within each other’s burning love and care. Elizabeth nods her head, knowing that this is what she wants. She wants to feel him, to be with him in ways that no one else can. To be that close to another person… It’s euphoric. Smiling a bit, he dips down at kisses her lips with a deep hunger. Every kiss is brought to life with a raw intensity. She breathes quick, her heart beats faster. Then, before she can process how it happened, they are bare to each other.

            Like they were always meant to be this way, their skin moves softly together. She feels his hand slip down below, rubbing her with careful intent and he moves fast, their tongues intertwined in a perfect kiss. She grinds down on his hand and her breathing changes rapidly with each of his thrusts, her soft moans filling the air. Then, as if he had never been there, he stops. Elizabeth exhales slowly and watches as he kisses from her breasts to her stomach, his touches light. Before she knows it, he’s licking and using his fingers all at once and he watches her reactions audaciously. He feels how her legs move, how her body writhes. He’s completely in control. He provokes her and touches her in the ways that make her ball her hands into her fists until she cannot control it anymore. She lets go and her thighs squeeze, almost trapping him where he lies.

            Pulling him back up to her, she kisses him roughly and is hardly prepared to fill his hard length against her thigh. It’s beautiful, she thinks, to finally be here in this space with him after only imagining what it would be life. Locking eyes with her, he gently slides himself in and to hear his moan in her ear when he drops down is enough to make her face flush and her fingers dig into his back.

            “Ah, Klaus,’ she moans, moving just slightly as he thrusts into her.

            Overcome with her instinctual emotions, she latches onto his neck and bites to which he pauses his movements to admire. Blood sharing. Intimate, personal… An old tradition lost to vampires. Klaus sighs with pleasure and pulls her back, cupping the side of her face. Lost in his exposed emotions, he bends down and takes her still wet lips, tasting his blood. They move with each other, perfectly in sync. He is only slightly surprised when she rolls them over, taking charge in their fight for control. She sits up and looks down on him, riding upwards and downwards again in an antagonizing slow pace. He digs his fingers into her thighs, hard enough to leave bruises. She sighs and waits patiently for him to come undone, feeling his warmth inside of her. In a blur, they switch and she acknowledges just how warm the sheets are from his heat. Klaus grasps her hands and pins them above her head, finding a home for his lips against her neck.

            “I have always wondered what you are like…” he says softly, laying down on her body.

            Elizabeth brings a hand to his back, running it up and down his spine until it settles on his tattoo. “Did I live up to your expectations?” She asks, a smile in her voice.

            Klaus lifts his head long enough to smile at her, his hand only briefly moving the hair from her face. “You are above and beyond anything I could have ever imagined.”

            The sappiness of his comment makes her groan, and even he knows it was purely awful judging by the way he laughs, but the blush still rises to her cheeks. When he goes back down and she relaxes into the mattress under his weight, she finds her thoughts going out far into places they had never been before. In her long life, she has felt happiness, but nothing has quite touched her like this.

            “Marcel Gerard and Kol Mikaelson have been restored,” Lyanna says as she brings her burning cigarette back to her lips and she takes a long drag. Frowning with dissatisfaction, she flicks the butt of it into the street and she watches the dull orange glow fizz out under the rain. Slowly, she drags her thumb under her bottom lip to fix her lipstick, smudging the brilliant red into her winter leather gloves.

            Charles walks up from behind, holding an umbrella of his own above his head. The rain pours endlessly and coldly, starting a small flood in the streets. “And what of Niklaus?”

            Lyanna smiles, looking up to the room she knows her sister is in, sleeping with the man she has always loved. “Perfectly unaware.”

            “Do you expect them to take our offer?” He asks, looking at her through the darkness. Her blue eyes almost glow when they catch the light of the flickering streetlamp across the street.

            “They will reject it,” she says with confidence. “My baby sister has always been the fighter. She won’t give up if it means allowing me to get my way with my plans.”

            Charles hums softly, tightening his grip on the handle of his umbrella. “So, she still doesn’t know the truth. That is rather interesting.”

            Lyanna laughs quietly and slides her hand into her pocket, straightening her posture as a familiar rush flows through her. “Not yet. I think I will fix that when they give us their answer. It will tear her apart once she knows.”

            “We mustn’t play with them, Lyanna,” Charles warns.

            Turning hastily to the man who stands beside her, Lyanna’s eyes flicker with an untamed darkness and she takes a dangerous step closer to him as her anger bubbles underneath her skin. “I think you’ve got our arrangement confused. You do not control my actions.  Do you understand me?”

            "The situation is very delicate. One wrong move and you will be sent right back," he reminds her. "You must remember that."

            “Don’t talk to me about remembering my place. I am the one who has power. I brought you back and I will happily send you back the moment you prove to be of no value to me,” she snarls. “You have been sloppy. Marrying and having a son? What the hell were you thinking?”

            Charles looks away, unable to stare at her prying eyes. “Nathan had my blood in his veins. I had hoped he would be the solution we needed, but he had too much of her–”

            “–You are pathetic. Your legacy is dead. You are nothing but a bitter old man,” Lyanna cuts in harshly. “The next time you try to control me will the last time you draw breath.”

            Charles glares at her, but he knows better than to push her buttons when she is upset. “What will you do to them?”

            "I'll tear them all apart. The harder I push them, the further they fall," she says darkly. "I do love a good game," she says.

            And as Lyanna walks away, only the sound of her heels clicking against the cold ground can be heard on the empty streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have no idea how much I love writing Lyanna's character. Villains are always so much fun to toy around with and I'm having an absolute party with the villain for the sequel. In fact, that's part of the reason why I love writing Klaus. His character is so complex. 
> 
> ALSO! I don't know how many of you are actively reading, but please don't be afraid to comment! I like to talk to you guys :)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	17. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making another move against Elizabeth and the Mikaelsons, Lyanna strikes hard and reveals a disturbing truth.

**_1518_ **

_“I want a family one day.”_

_Elizabeth looks up from her from the small sketch that she holds in her hands, pausing her thoughts long enough to address her sister. Lyanna wears her favorite summer dress, her hair pinned up in high braids, and she almost glows in the sunlight. “What made you say that?”_

_Lyanna excitedly crosses her legs together and she pulls her hands out of the grass to gesture to her little sister. “Mama was a wonderful mother, Lizzie. I want to be like her. I want to have kids and a husband that loves me.”_

_Humming softly, Elizabeth nods her head. She has thought a lot about their mother in recent years, missing the influence she had on the world around her. “I suppose it would be nice. Promise me you will have many children for me once you are wedded?”_

_“Why not have children for yourself?” Lyanna asks. “You would be a lovely mother,”_

_Sadly, Elizabeth keeps her eyes trained on the sketch that she now grips in her hands. For months now, she has struggled with finding a way to tell her sister, but there’s no use in beating around the bush. Her sister will find out one way or another. “I cannot have my own children, Lyanna. Not anymore,” she explains._

_Silence swallows them as Lyanna takes the time to understand what she’s saying. Of course, she should have known, but to accept that her sister will never be able to have children… It’s still rather difficult. “Do you ever find yourself wishing you could have stayed human?”_

_“Not really,” Elizabeth answers honestly. “I am okay with being what I am.”_

_“Because you love him?” Lyanna asks, playing the flowers she had resting her lap._

_Elizabeth nods slowly. “Because I love him."  
_

_"I do hope your romance lasts a lifetime, little sister. You deserve it," Lyanna says honestly._

_A little surprised by her sister's words as she is pretty sure she has never liked Klaus, Elizabeth tilts her head to the side. "I've never heard you speak so kindly about my romance before."_

_Lyanna giggles and reaches into the small pocket that had been sewn into her dress, pulling out a nicely folded up piece of paper. She is careful with her fingers as she unfolds it, revealing a perfectly drawn portrait of Elijah. "It would be rather hypocritical of me to disapprove of your lover when I have one of my own whom I love very much,"  she says happily. "However, I still believe Niklaus to be brutish and unworthy of you."_

_Elizabeth would love to defend her opinions of Klaus, but she keeps her mouth shut. There is no use in trying to change Lyanna's mind. Once she is set in her ways, there is no getting her out of them and as she stares back at Lyanna now, she wonders what kind of road they will be taken down as she falls further and further in love with her magic. Something is burning within her sister, something that hadn't been there before and although she seems at peace and purely happy now, it is only a matter of time before she snaps again. The path in front of them is dangerous and one day, it just may get one of them killed._

            Walking down the hallway slowly with her hands shoved into her pockets, she cannot help but feel like there is something nagging at her. There is something so blatantly obvious staring her in the face and she cannot wrap her mind around it no matter how hard she tries. It feels like something is blocking her, like something out there doesn’t want her to see truth. Passing by a room, her walk comes to a stop at the sound of arguing. As discreetly as she can be, she peers into the room to find Klaus, Hayley, and Hope. None of their faces appear to be happy, not that she excepted them to be. Today has been nothing short of awful for everyone and it seems to be only growing worse by the hour.

            “I don’t want to go,” Hope argues.

            “This isn’t up for discussion,” Hayley says strictly. “We’re leaving tonight.”

            Hope angrily shakes her head and she opens her mouth to argue her point more, but her father cuts her off long before she can get her first syllable out. “Sweetheart, you’re too young. I understand you want to help our family, but you will get hurt. This fight is no place for children. You will be safer with your mother. She will look after you.”

            “I don’t want to be safe with mom!” Hope yells heatedly. “I want to stay here to protect our family just like all of you are. I’m a tribrid, dad. Let me help you.”

            Dropping down to his knee, Klaus grabs both of Hope’s hands and waits for him to look at him before speaking again. He’s being as gentle and as calm as he can be with her, trying to make her understand. “This is not your fight, my littlest wolf. Please do not make this difficult. We are only trying to protect you and one day you will see that.”

            Hope, refusing to hear reason, pulls her hands from her father and runs out of the bedroom, shoving past Elizabeth with great force. Hayley says nothing to her as she too leaves the room to run after her teenage daughter. Awkwardly, Elizabeth pushes the door fully open and rubs her arm as she enters. The tension in the room is still rather thick and she's unsure of what to say.

            “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop…” She says quietly.

            Klaus shakes his head, dragging a hand down his tired face. “She grows more stubborn with age.”

            “Can you blame her?” Elizabeth asks. “She has wolf’s blood in her veins and she’s a Mikaelson. She’s tougher than all of us.”

            Standing up from the ground, Klaus walks to Elizabeth and gently grabs her locket from where it rested against her chest and he runs his thumb over it slowly. “Hayley and I decided that it would be best to move them outside of town. They’ll be traveling with members from her pack who have sworn to protect Hope. They will all get Hope as far away from Lyanna's plans as possible.”

            “When are the others expected to arrive?”

            “Any moment now,” he replies. “Elijah should be back with them soon.”

            Then, as if something had pulled him to do it, he steps in close and kisses her lips softly and slowly. Elizabeth melts against him, resting a hand on his hip as he tries to bury himself against her. He’s looking for a way to escape for a while and she can't say that she blames him for wanting to. Smiling softly, she pulls away from him and meets his eyes. For a moment, they stand there, allowing themselves to be in each other’s comfort.

            “We’ll come out on top of this. After Lyanna is handled, we’ll tear apart Charles’ facility,” she says confidently and she’s not sure where the newfound confidence came from, but she’s going to run with it while she has it. “We just have to figure out what her plan is first. I can feel something… I just don’t know what it is.”

            Klaus pulls her body roughly against his, smiling down on her in a way that makes butterflies flutter in her stomach. “And what do you suggest we do in the meantime?”

            Listening carefully, past his loudly beating heart, she can hear the sound of car doors slamming in the garage and the sound of chatter filling the Abattoir’s main floor. Laughing, she pushes back against Klaus’ chest although he tries to fight it. “I have to go handle the guests with Rebekah and Elijah,” she says, cutting their time together short. “You are more than welcome to come help us if you’re feeling social today.”

            Rolling his eyes, Klaus shakes his head in disagreement. “Unfortunately, I have been volunteered to go help Kol and Freya with their remaining research,” he says with a bored tone. If he had it his way, they’d be on Charles’ doorstep by morning. “Do try to not to get yourself killed.”

            And as if he had never been there, he’s gone. Elizabeth takes in a deep breath, trying to will herself to remain calm today. After talking to Cami a few days ago, she decided that she no longer has it in her to be afraid. Lyanna may be her sister and maybe her actions are her fault in some way, but dwelling on it will not make it go away. She’s starting to heal now and nothing will take that away from her. Shaking the thoughts from her head, she leaves Hope’s room and is sure to close the door behind her as she goes. Walking quickly, she makes her way down to the main floor where a cluster of familiar and unfamiliar faces stand about. Josh is the first to walk up to her, smiling nearly from ear to ear.

            “I was wondering when you would pop up,” he greets, pulling her into a strong hug.

            Elizabeth laughs when she is lifted from the floor, clutching onto his arms for security. “I was handling some family drama,” she says as she is set back down. "

            “Ah, so nothing new, then,” he jokes lightly, but then something in his eyes changes. He seems somber and he struggles with finding the right words to say, tripping over himself a few times before finding them. “I’m sorry about what happened to Nathan. He was a great guy and he cared a lot about you. It sucks he won’t be here to see you win this thing. You’ve already come so far. He would be proud of you.”

            Elizabeth, flinching subtly at the reminder of her lost friend, nods her head. She knows he and Josh were close because they spent so much time together watching Charles’ facility and she feels awful for never reaching out to him to make sure he was okay. “Charles was his father. He put himself in danger the moment he decided to talk to me for the first time. They wanted to prove that they could kill any one of us at any time and that’s exactly why we’re bringing all of you in. I won’t watch another friend to die.”

            “This is going to be interesting,” Josh points out as he looks around the large room. “There’s going to be a lot of vampires, witches, and werewolves trapped in one place for a while.”

            “Yes, and should any of you try to start a fight in our home, I will put a stop to it immediately,” Elijah says as he comes up from behind.

            Elizabeth turns to face him, a little caught off guard by his sudden appearance. “Please do not tear anyone’s head off,” she says slowly and given how high the tensions are, she knows she has every right to be a little afraid of such actions.

            “The only head I will be tearing off is Lyanna’s if she dares to try and harm my family again,” Elijah threatens a little too calmly. “We’re already rejecting her offer to surrender. I suspect she will be rather displeased once she realizes what we’re up to.”

            “Somehow, I get the feeling she would have found a way to be upset even if we agreed to surrender,” she says with a sigh.

            Walking up to them, Cami smiles and looks between the faces that look back at hers. “I just wanted to tell you that I would have done the same thing. Surrendering probably would have gotten more of us killed in the end and I know it’s risky, but you guys should fight this.”

            “We’re doing what we can,” Elizabeth says with a slight shrug.

            From the second floor, Kol peers over the banister to find the woman he is looking for. His eyes dart all over the crowd until he eventually finds her standing beside his brother. “Elizabeth!” He yells over the loud chatter. “We need you upstairs!”

            Looking away from Cami, Elizabeth is by his side in a single second. “Did something happen?” She asks, a little worried.

            “Not necessarily, but Freya thinks she figured something out. We have a couple of questions about Lyanna,” he explains.

            Walking down to the room that Freya has essentially taken over, Elizabeth quickly looks between Davina and Klaus’ faces before settling back on Freya. “I’m not sure what else I can tell you about my sister. You guys know just about as much as I do at this point.”

            “I know and everything you’ve told us so far has been helpful,” Freya says sincerely. “However, I think I’ve narrowed down what Lyanna is trying to do. In her darkest period, did she ever practice resurrection spells?”

            Elizabeth’s eyes flicker back to Klaus’ as she thinks back to the 1500s once again. “There were a few times where we caught her resurrecting birds and other animals. Between all of the murders and the work we were having to do to hide them, it was hard to keep track of what she was doing.”

            Freya sighs, looking down at her notes. “Based on the thirteen people she killed and how hard she is trying to keep her plans locked up, I think she’s trying to raise something from the dead. And I believe she has been trying to since she turned to dark magic. Klaus killing her put a stop to her plans.”

            “What on earth could be so powerful that she needs to slaughter people?” Elizabeth asks, feeling her stomach twist into knots.

            “Something old, something with a lot of power,” she replies. “Whatever it is, it’s bad. I’m starting to think that whatever she is trying to raise is what gave her power to her. I can feel her energy and no witch should be able to possess the power she has. It nearly killed Davina when she had the power of the harvest girls.”

            Klaus twirls his glass around, looking down at the amber liquid, presumably bourbon, as he does. “The other alternative is your loving sister is trying to set something free.”

            Taking a needed deep breath, Elizabeth glances looks back to Freya. “And I’m assuming we still don’t know what that something is?”

            “No and until we do, we can’t stop her. We still don’t know how she’s alive, which means we can’t kill her unless we want to risk her coming back,” Freya warns.

            “On the contrary,” Klaus bids, “I will gladly murder your sister again.”

            Kol rolls his eyes, taking a seat on the edge of the coffee table. “And when she comes back to life, I’ll be sure to grab the camera before she tears your head off, Nik.”

            Clearing her throat, Freya looks between both boys with a pointed expression. “We won’t kill her until we know _how_ to kill her,” she says firmly. “Ultimately, Lyanna is trying to bring something back. If you can think of anything else, please let me know.”

            Swaying back and forth on the bar-stool, she keeps her eyes fixed on the things in front of her. A bottle of bourbon, a napkin with lipstick smudged on it, and a half-eaten muffin. "You're asking me like I can read his mind," she says with a sigh. "I'm pretty sure he would kill me if I tried to get into his head like that."

            "Don't be so dramatic. He would only try to kill you for a few hours at most," Rebekah points out optimistically. "Nik has been in love with you for as long as you have known him.  And I would assume you love him as well?"

            Her hand tightens around her glass as she considers her answer. She has always known how she feels about it, she knew it from the moment she looked into his eyes for the first time, but to say it out loud always makes it feel so much more real. "Of course, I love him. I love him more than anything."

            "Exactly. So why wouldn't he want to marry you?" She pries, smiling like she knows a thousand dirty little secrets.

            "I somehow doubt the thought of marriage wouldn't cross his mind until my sister is handled and I can look into the mirror without seeing the torture Charles put me through," she says grimly. "We all know the timing is wrong." Taking a deep breath, she lets go of her aggression and tries to make herself sound a little happier. "Though, I would like to marry him one day."

            "In all due time..." Rebekah hums.

            Turning her attention back to the bar, Elizabeth listens to the conversations that surround her. One person talks to their spouse about their cat, another woman talks to her best friend about the upcoming college finals season. She often wonders what her life would have been like if she could have stayed human and although it tends to pull at her curiosity, she is perfectly happy with what she is. Blinking, she drops her gaze back down to her hands and she takes a long sip from her drink, swallowing back the negative emotions that pool around in her mind. Cami was right about her. She has changed. Rebekah watches her carefully, wanting to reach out and help her. In her thousand years of life, she knows something about suffering.

            "A little compulsion could help you," she offers kindly. 

            Elizabeth smiles, but she ultimately shakes her head. "Klaus already offered. Forgetting about my trauma or forcing myself to move on from it wouldn't help it. All it would do is leave a hole in my mind that I wouldn't know what to do with," she explains. "Besides, I've been taking Vervain any chance I get."

            “Smart girl,” Rebekah praises.

            “I figured I shouldn’t take any chances around Klaus. He’s tried to compel me away too many times in the past,” she says with a sigh. “I honestly couldn’t tell if he was pissed or amazed that I was taking it when he first found out.”

            “Well, in any case… You can count on me to always be there for you. Us girls have to stick together in this world.”

            Nodding into her next drink, Elizabeth agrees with a smirk. At the sound of the bell jingling above the entrance door, she looks over her shoulder out of curiosity. Four men and one woman walk in wearing dark clothes, their eyes darting all over the bar. Setting her glass down apprehensively, Elizabeth nudges Rebekah with her knee. The youngest Original looks over to the door and she squints her eyes, trying to figure out who these people are. It’s not until Elizabeth spots the patch on their shoulders that she puts it together. With wide eyes, she swivels around to face Rebekah.

            “These are some of Charles’ human hybrids,” she says in a low voice. “Their bite has an extremely potent strain of wolf venom. They’re fast and they’re strong.”

            “Do you think they’re going to try and take you?” She asks urgently.

            Shrugging her shoulders, Elizabeth gulps when she hears the group of hybrids take the open spots beside them at the bar. Slowly, she turns around to face them bravely. The biggest man smiles at her, his teeth bright and his eyes gleaming. The way he looks at her makes her skin crawl and it takes every ounce of control she can muster to not smash his head with the glass she holds in her hand. 

            “Elizabeth Walker… You really are as beautiful as they say,” he says warmly.

            Smirking, Elizabeth looks between the three men, assessing which one will be the easiest to take out. “You haven’t attacked yet… So why are you here?”

            “We’re here because Charles wants us to be. We’re keeping an eye on your family,” the leader explains. “We are here to kill or take anyone who steps out of line. I’m sure you understand.”

            Another man, whose eyes are green and hair is cut short, leans forward to speak to her next. “We’re also here to ask you kindly to come back to the facility with us. Lyanna is being as generous as she can, but this order comes from Charles.”

            Elizabeth scoffs, rejecting the request. “Right, well… you can tell Charles that he can shove that request up his ass,” she says confidently. “I’m not going back there. I will _never_ go back there.”

            The leader sneers, leaning in close to her face. “You’re gonna regret it if you don’t.”

            Setting her drink down, Rebekah tucks her hair behind her ears. “I’ll pretend like you lot are not ignoring me,” she says strongly. “Do you really think threatening her while an Original sits no more than three inches from her is wise?”

            Huffing, the leader draws back from Elizabeth. “Rebekah Mikaelson… The baby sister of the Mad Hybrid.”

            “I wouldn’t call him mad per se… Just homicidal and hungry for revenge and he's not the only one,” Rebekah corrects. “If you take her, you’ll have to face his temper. In fact, you would have to face all of us at once. That wouldn’t be wise.”

            “Klaus will be dealt with. We have contingency plans in place for the bastard,” the leader snaps. “Elizabeth can either come with us now or Lyanna will strike.”

            Taking her chances, Elizabeth moves quickly to slam the leaders head into the bar as hard as she can. The chatter in Rousseau’s instantly dies down and before too long, they’re running out of the bar. Moving in a blur, Elizabeth speeds around to the smallest man and snaps his neck. From behind her, Rebekah takes on the leader and struggles to get a hold on him. As a bar stool is slammed into her back, shattering, Elizabeth drops down the floor and groans. A fist grabs her hair and drags her back, to which she cries out. Using her strength, she pushes up from the ground and lands on the back of her attacker with his hand still in her hair.

            He tries to throw her off, never succeeding. Quickly, she snaps his neck and tumbles to the floor when his body drops. Sliding against the bar with a thud, she stands and jumps on top of the counter, running on top of it until she is sailing in the air. Tackling the leader to the ground, she holds him still all while Rebekah plunges her hand into his chest and rips his heart out. Panting, she drops the heart to the floor and pushes her hair back with the back of her hand.

            “That was considerably more challenging than I thought it would be,” she says.

            “We need to get back to the compound,” Elizabeth says, voice pressed. “We need to warn Elijah. I have a feeling that was our last chance to back off.”

            After taking a short moment to store the bodies in the back to be handled later, Elizabeth and Rebekah burst out of the bar and run back to the compound at an incredible speed. At the entrance, they branch off to find Elijah and Klaus. Elizabeth dashes up the stairs, taking two at a time, and she discovers that she has started to shake with nerves. She rushes to the end of the hallway, hoping that Klaus will be in her room just as he always seems to be lately. Pushing the door open, she is surprised to not find Klaus waiting for her, but a woman who stands in near her bed holding Lyanna’s grimoire in her hands.

            Elizabeth edges closer, her feet light on the hardwood floor. The woman snaps the book closed and turns to face Elizabeth, a smile on her red and full lips. Elizabeth's heart skips a beat and she stares with wide eyes, fear coursing through her veins. On the woman’s chin is a wicked scar, stretching from her bottom lip to the middle of her throat. She stands straight and her hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, freeing her face from her curls. Her dark blue eyes roam over Elizabeth's stature; it has been years since she has seen her sister look lively and well.

            "It has been quite some time, little sister," Lyanna muses. “I wouldn’t bother calling for Rebekah. She’s been handled.”

            Elizabeth keeps her eyes carefully fixated on her sister, unwilling to let her out of her sight after what happened at the bar. "Correct me if I’m wrong," she says, “but aren’t you supposed to be dead?”  

            Lyanna smirks and lays her hand upon her grimoire. "Yes, well... I was dead. Niklaus saw to that," she clarifies hastily after a pause. "And yet I stand here before you."

            "He tore your heart out. You shouldn't be here," Elizabeth snaps. “We burned your body to stop you from ever coming back. How are you alive?”

            Angry, Lyanna scoffs and glares at her younger sister. "And by doing so, you all condemned me to a hundred years of endless pain."

            Elizabeth flinches, shaking head. Slowly, she raises her hands to show she means no harm. Lyanna’s temper is worse than ever.  "We had no idea. You were becoming dangerous, Lyanna. You wouldn't let us help you. We did what we had to do."

            Bemused, Lyanna hugs her grimoire close to her chest with one arm. Her pale skin glows in the moonlight, bringing out her true beauty. She was always the more desirable sister.

            "It's ancient history, sister. However, your history with Charles is still quite fresh and he is not done with you," Lyanna says. The tone in her voice makes Elizabeth's skin crawl. "He has great plans for you."

            This is her chance to get some answers. "Why is Charles obsessed with me?" She asks, voice strong. She will not cower to her fear.

            Lyanna smiles, a flame in her eyes. She takes a step closer to Elizabeth and gently tucks one of her locks of hair behind her ear, stroking the side of her face. Elizabeth takes a sharp inhale and balls her hands into fists, nails digging into her skin.

            "It is quite sad how you still cannot see the truth," she muses quietly.

            Elizabeth blinks, unable to make the connection in her crowded mind. "What are you talking about?"

            "Isn't obvious, little sister?" She asks with a cynical tone. "Charles Richardson is our father. William Walker. I was the one who gave him the tools to capture you and it was me who tore apart your precious mind until you couldn’t recognize him anymore. I hid him in plain sight. I thought you would have connected the dots sooner. My mistake."

            Stumbling backward, Elizabeth hits the wall. The burning feeling in the pit of her stomach, the nagging in the back of her mind… this is it. This is the truth she has been struggling to see for years. She shakes her head, rejecting the truth although she can see it so clearly now. It doesn’t make sense. How can both of them be alive? "You're lying. Our father is dead. He died in the fire that destroyed our village."

            "Just as I died when Niklaus tore my heart from my chest," she snaps. "Our father was brought back to life with my magic when I needed someone to take care of you and the problem you surely would have become. I found his bones and I gave him an identical body. Think, little sister. Who do you think it was who introduced me to dark magic when we were young? You were much too weak, so our father chose me. I was the stronger sister. You have and will always be less than me and I will get what I want.”

            Breathing heavily now, Elizabeth shakes her head. She will not accept this. Her father died in the fire. The man who tortured her for a decade is a monster. "You listen to me-"

            "No!" Lyanna yells. "You _will_ listen to me."

            Suddenly a pain erupts in Elizabeth's head, a rubber band squeezing her brain. She drops to her knees, unable to scream. She grabs fistfuls of her hair, weeping through a sealed jaw.

            "All of this would have been much simple if you just came back to the facility where you belong,” she says and there is no room for argument. "I am done playing games, little sister. Back off or the girl and her mother will die. I will personally make sure of it."

            When the pain vanishes, Elizabeth looks up to meet the cold blue eyes of her sister. "W-What girl?"

            Lyanna smiles, laughing with no remorse. "I do believe I did warn you what would happen should you not surrender. Niklaus took my life away from me, so I saw it fit that I take away the thing he loves the most. This is only the beginning of the pain I will bring to this pathetic family."

            With wide eyes, no longer focusing on her sister’s presence, Elizabeth bolts out of the room and down the hallway to Hope’s room. She was supposed to leave town tonight, she should have already been gone. At the entrance of her bedroom, Elizabeth finds the balcony door shattered and a bed with thrown blankets. Eyes scanning the room, she finds no one.

            "Hope! Hayley!" She screams, running to the balcony doors. "No, no, no..."

            As her heart slams against her chest, she runs from the room and is in the study within seconds. Klaus and Elijah pause their conversation to stare, thrown by the tears running down Elizabeth's face.

            "Klaus, they took her," she pants. "H-Hope and Hayley are gone."

            The glass Klaus held in his hands shatters and Elijah gets to his feet, his eyes full of worry; Rebekah never made it to them. Elizabeth uneasily walks into the room, her hands trembling. She feels immeasurable guilt and anger. This is her fault. She should have just gone with them. 

            "Hayley was just here to take Hope," Klaus says, voice painted with anger. "What do you mean my daughter is gone?"

            Elizabeth shakes her head, tripping over her thoughts. She can barely think. The only person on her mind is Hope. "Lyanna was in my room. She-She warned me that if we do not back off, they will kill her. Klaus, I'm so sorry. They’re gone and this is only the beginning."

            In a fit of rage, Klaus shoves Elizabeth back and she flies across the room. Through the force he thrust upon her, she smashes the grandfather clock that once stood behind her and she looks down in horror at the thick piece of wood that protrudes from the center of her chest, a mere inch from her heart. Taking in a short gasp, she drops to her knees and chokes on the blood that fills her mouth. Elijah is by her side in an instant and he rips the wooden frame piece from her chest, throwing it across the room. Klaus watches with tears brimming his eyes, unable to move in his confusion and rage.

            "Elizabeth, are you alright?" Elijah asks, a hand covering her wound.

            Elizabeth moves her bloody hand to cover Elijah’s and she chokes, barely conscious. "I’m sorry..." She whispers.

            And as she takes in one last staggered breath, she falls into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been so busy lately. I'm glad I have this story to come back to when I need a break. 
> 
> I honestly might rewrite this chapter later. I had some trouble writing it all out and it didn't turn out how I would have liked, but I posted it anyways to keep the story going. :) 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	18. The Switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knowing that she needs to do something to save Hope and Hayley, no matter how dangerous it may be for her, Elizabeth puts her life on the line to break them out.

 “Niklaus, I need your help.”

            Elijah scoops Elizabeth’s body into his arms and he turns to the large desk on the other side of the room, pushing everything that had once been on it onto the floor in a single sweep of his arm. With care, he lies her body upon it and turns back to his frighteningly still brother who remains frozen in the center of the room.

            “Brother, please. There are splinters in her chest that I need to remove,” Elijah urges again.

            “I am going after my daughter,” he spats coldly.

            “Niklaus, believe me when I say I understand your train of thought, but we have to be careful about–”

            “–You dare suggest we sit around and allow my daughter to remain in the care of Charles Richardson?” Klaus cuts in nastily. “My daughter is not a pawn to be used in this war. I will tear through his men and I will get her back.”

            Trying to control his emotions that wrestle with his unmatched anger, Elijah clutches the edge of the desk until it groans underneath his fingers. “No one understands your anger as much as I do, but, brother, I must insist that we first come up with a solid plan that doesn’t result in Hope or Hayley being harmed.”

            When Klaus rushes out of the room, Elijah gets the sense that he will not be returning. Knowing that he needs to keep himself focused in order to stave off any unfortunate reactions, he angles the desk lamp over Elizabeth’s chest and carefully tears her shirt open. Around the wound are the beginning signs of desiccation, telling him that some of the splinters are making their way to her heart. He rummages violently through the desk, slamming them in frustration when he finds no tweezers or pliers. Rebekah, rubbing her neck, stumbles into the room and is alarmed by what she finds.

            “What the bloody hell happened?” She asks, rushing to Elizabeth’s side.

            Pausing his rummaging, Elijah pinches the bridge of his nose. “Lyanna took Hope and Hayley,” he says. “When Elizabeth came in to tell Niklaus and me, our brother threw her into the grandfather clock. She has splinters in her chest, some of which going towards her heart, and I need you to find me a pair of tweezers before she dies.”

            In all of two seconds, Rebekah procures her pair of tweezers from her bathroom and returns with them in hand. She passes them to Elijah and although she has several questions about what they’re going to do about Lyanna, she holds her tongue for the moment. She knows Elijah like the back of her hand and she knows that he needs this one moment of control or else he will lose his temper. Getting to work, Elijah pulls the first splinter from Elizabeth’s chest and is as gentle as he can be when he plunges deeper for the ones near her heart.

            “Elijah–”

            “–Rebekah, don’t. What I need is for you to go find our brother and to keep him here at all costs. He will want to go after them.”

            “Shouldn’t we go after them?” Rebekah demands. She can hardly believe what she is hearing.

            “Yes, we should, but after we’ve thought carefully about what we are going to do. Lyanna will not hesitate to harm them,” Elijah explains and his tone is on the edge of angry.

            “Elijah, if she has Hope, then we must act quickly,” Rebekah argues.

            Slamming his hand down on the desk, Elijah finally looks away from Elizabeth’s wound and up to his sister. “I am quite aware of who she has. I intend to get both of them back, but I will not storm after them and risk her killing my niece. _Go_ find out brother.”

            Wordlessly, Rebekah walks out of the room and Elijah exhales slowly, looking back down at the task before him. He works diligently for what feels like hours before the sound of another heartbeat in the room has his hands freezing. He looks away from Elizabeth’s wound and spots the woman standing across the room, smiling at him as she watches him work. He is not sure how long she has been standing there, but he would guess it has been quite a while.

            “Hello, Elijah,” Lyanna says.

            Setting the tweezers down, Elijah pulls the handkerchief from his suit coat pocket and wipes his bloody hands clean. “What could you possibly want?” He asks, keeping his face perfectly neutral.

            Lyanna hums and looks down at her sister, crossing her arms over her chest. “There are several things that I want, Elijah. Could you be more specific?”

            “You come back here after taking Hope and Hayley from us? I should kill you where you stand,” Elijah threatens darkly.

            Smiling, Lyanna takes a few steps forward and she does so with a saunter, her heels clicking on the floor. “You cannot kill me, Elijah. You won’t do it until you know how I’ve come back and what I’m after.”

            “You rely too heavily on my conscious,” he growls, snapping to her side and grabbing her by her throat. The bones in her neck begin to crunch and pop, bringing him more satisfaction than he would like to admit. “Why all of these games, Lyanna? Why not kill Elizabeth and get it over with?”

            Her hands fly up to grasp his, pulling against it in hopes of pulling it away from her throat before she loses consciousness. She gasps for air and smiles almost, refusing to show Elijah that she is afraid of him. “I cannot…” she chokes out, wheezing. “I cannot kill her.”

            Elijah loosens his firm grasp, intrigued by her words that hold a lot more meaning than what she is letting on. “Why? You have no problem with killing our friends. You have no problem with kidnapping my young niece. I would think your little sister wouldn’t be any different?”

            “If you think I’m going to tell you all of my dirty secrets, Elijah… then you really must not know me at all,” she growls and in the heat of her words, the irises of her eyes begin to glow fiery red.

            No longer in control of his own body, Elijah’s hands snap back to his sides and he takes three steps back, frozen in his place. He watches Lyanna carefully, watching as the horrific color drains from her naturally blue eyes. She clears her throat and stares back at him, smiling once more. She can see something within him, within the connection he holds with her sister, and it angers her deeply.

            “Why are you here?” He demands.

            “I came to offer you a deal,” she admits smoothly. “After I get what I want, the world you live in will not be the world you once loved. If you come with me, I can arrange for you to come out on top by my side.”

            He listens carefully to her as she speaks, knowing that Lyanna is the kind of person who reveals too much when she talks. The more she talks, the more information he gets. “And turn my back on my own family?” He asks and he may even laugh if he wasn’t so frozen. “You really have lost what was left of your mind.”

            Lyanna laughs and moves to stand in front of him, keeping her hold on his body. She cups either side of his face and leans in close, feeling the tension in between them. She hovers her lips above his and looks deeply into his eyes, searching for what she is looking for.

            “You never belonged here. You don’t belong with this family or my perfectly annoying sister,” she says quietly. “You belong with me. I know you feel what I feel.”

            Fighting her magic, he manages to turn his head away from her and she glowers at him, forcing his head back by his jaw. She steps back and rests a hand over his beating heart, pressing her fingers against his chest.

            “You love the hybrid woman. Hayley Marshall,” she guesses.

            “You took Hope and Hayley away from my family. I will not hear anything more from you unless it is to discuss their safe return to us,” Elijah says coldly, ignoring her assumptions. He will not give Lyanna any reason to harm Hayley.

            “Their return is not up to me,” Lyanna reveals. “Charles wanted them and it benefited my plan. If you will not accept my deal, then we have nothing more to discuss.”

            Muttering a quick Latin incantation, Lyanna disappears and her hold on Elijah’s body fades into nothing. He looks around the room, stiffly turning back to Elizabeth’s body. His mind is swamped with what he knows he should do and what he has to do, unable to come up with a solid plan. Carefully, he lifts Elizabeth’s body into his arms and as he leaves, he decides they will do absolutely anything necessary to get them back.

_This is only the beginning of the pain I will bring to this pathetic family._ The words bounce around her head, stuck in an endless loop that shows no end in sight. The amount of guilt and anger that she feels cannot be expressed in a single string of words. Was it entirely her fault? No. Should she have seen it coming? Maybe. From the start, Lyanna planned to always seek her revenge and to see her plan through to the end. It was painfully obvious that she was going to strike where it hurts the most and she can only imagine what terrible things will come their way in the coming weeks. In the back of her mind, she wonders if Hope and Hayley would have been safe if she had just gone to the facility like she was supposed to.

            But, then, of course… There is the other bit of information that she has to think heavily about now. Charles Richardson was her father who once went by William Walker in the 1500s. The man who tortured her endlessly is also the man that gave her life and somehow, it makes his wickedness hurt much more than it already did. And Nathan? In their now insanely twisted and horrific family tree, he would be her little brother. It now makes sense why, out of everyone, he was the first one to be killed. Charles, whether she knew it at the time or not, wanted to take away her last living family member. Now that she knows the truth, it’s haunting her and feels so much guilt for what happened to him. She never should have involved him in the first place. Though, she knows that train of thought leads to nowhere. Nathan would have involved himself one way or another because he is, in truth, a Walker and just as she has always been a fighter, he was one too. 

            “You seem upset,” Marcel says under the shouting and slamming coming from upstairs. He smoothly takes the seat in front of Elizabeth, watching her face carefully.

            Looking away from the window, Elizabeth nods her head. Her chest is still sore from last night, the skin is still pink from where it has regrown. According to Elijah, it took him hours to dig out all of the splinters lost in her chest cavity. Klaus has barely said a single word to her since throwing her into the clock and she supposes that’s for the best. She lightly touches the spot on her chest and frowns, doing her best to pull herself out of this spiraling mood she has been in for the majority of the day.

            “Hope was taken so easily because we weren’t careful enough. She’s just a kid, Marcel,” she says. “And Hayley… She’s her mother and the love of Elijah’s life. I can’t even begin to imagine what Charles will do to them. He always wanted to get his hands on a hybrid and now he has that _and_ the world’s only tribrid.”

            Marcel takes a deep breath, leaning onto the table with his hands folded. He has spent all morning with Rebekah trying to think of logical ways to get around this without getting people killed and so far, nothing smart has come up. However, there was one thing that crossed his mind that he has yet to mention. “I got an idea that would probably work, but Klaus won’t like it. I’m not even sure if you’ll like it.”

            Elizabeth tilts her head to the side, waiting for Marcel to explain further. “A plan that Klaus won’t like?” She muses lightly. “What could possibly go wrong?”

            “Charles wants you, right? That’s what it comes down to at the end of the day,” he asks, earning a nod from her. “He’s got an intense obsession with you. If we can utilize that, maybe we can get Hope and Hayley back from his facility without getting anyone killed. We can get them to safety, far away from the city.”

            Elizabeth looks down at the table, her fingers folding together. She knows what he’s implying and he’s right. Klaus would never be okay with a plan that is so idiotic. “You think I should give myself over… Give Charles what he wants to get Hope and Hayley out.”

            Marcel nods and he reaches out to lightly rest his hand on top of hers. “I know Charles did horrible things to you, but like you said. Hope is just a kid. She shouldn’t be anywhere near a man like Charles. Hayley can handle it, but not with Hope there.”

            “Marcel, you’re asking me to go behind his back,” Elizabeth says nervously. The shouting upstairs is only growing worse, Klaus’ voice ringing through the hallways followed by Elijah and Rebekah’s. “I have done that in the past and it ended badly. Hell, we’ve all done it before and look at how it turned out.”

            “Trust, me I know,” Marcel agrees. He leans in closer on the table, trying to make his point as clear as possible while not being too loud. He would never suggest something like this unless it was the only way. “But we have to do something and this is our fastest option. Klaus will bust down his door himself if we don’t act fast. If we even mention this to him, he won’t want to do it. He’ll want to find another way and we cannot risk losing time.”

            “If I do this, I will be breaking Klaus’ trust,” she says wearily. “He made me promise to keep fighting and if I give myself over like this, it’ll break him. I’ll be throwing away everything we’ve done so far to keep me safe and _away_ from Charles.”

            Marcel looks at her with true hurt in his eyes. He hates the idea just as much as she does. He knows what kind of weight a promise like that carries. He would know. Not too long ago, he made a similar promise to the woman he loves. “I get it, Liz. I’ve broken his trust so many times and it was almost impossible to get it back. In fact, I’m still not sure if he trusts me.”

            “I will admit,” Elijah says from the entrance of the dining room, “it is an entirely awful plan through and through, but we need to get Hope back. As I’m sure the entire city has heard, my brother will not rest until he has his daughter in his arms again. And Hayley… I cannot imagine…” He trails off, unable to finish.           

            Elizabeth looks up to Elijah and he puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. All morning he has been yelling back and forth with Klaus and it shows as he looks as if he hasn’t slept for the past week.

            “Then I’ll do it. I’ll go find Josh. He should still have the facility floor plans from Nathan. If I can sneak in, I can get Hope and Hayley out. He won’t come after them if I stay behind.”

            “Elizabeth, you should think carefully about this,” Elijah says cautiously. “You’re willing giving yourself over to Charles.”

            Nodding her head stiffly, she reaches up to clasp her hand over his as he continues to rest them on her shoulders. “I know and I know what he will do to me. It’s a risk I’m willing to take to get Hope and Hayley out.”

            There’s something in Elijah’s eyes, something that he wants to say to her or warn her about, but he keeps the thoughts carefully concealed in his mind. “Elizabeth, I… I _won’t_ lose you to this again,” he says seriously.

            Hearing the pain in his voice, she squeezes his hand reassuringly. “You won’t.”

            “And what do we do about Klaus?” Marcel asks. “The second he figures out the plan, he’ll be on our asses. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t shown up on Charles’ front door by now.”

            “Niklaus, although impulsive, knows better than to give Charles a reason to hurt Hope,” Elijah says with a sigh. “I will go to Freya and Rebekah to see if we can trap our brother for a few hours. It should give us enough time to do what needs to be done for the sake of my niece and Hayley.”

            Elizabeth stands from the table and she looks to Marcel. “And what will you do?”

            Smiling, Marcel reaches into his pocket for his car keys. “I will be the getaway driver with Josh and Aiden. We’ll make sure Hope and Hayley get somewhere safe.”

            Once she is confident the details are solid enough, for now, Elizabeth leaves the dining room and runs up the stairs to track down Josh. As she passes the study, she hears the crashes of furniture and the angry voice of Klaus, followed by shouting from Rebekah. Although what Elijah said was meant to be a joke, she honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the entirety of New Orleans has heard them screaming. Looking over her shoulder, she slips into the living room and finds Josh sitting in the living room, scrolling endlessly on his phone. Stiffly, she takes a seat in front of him on the coffee table and waits patiently for him to look at her.

            “Uh oh…” he says slowly. “I know that look.”

            Elizabeth smiles silently and makes a gesture that signals him to keep his voice low and below the shouting. “I need your help,” she says in a near whisper. “Please tell me you still have the floor plans of Charles’ facility from Nathan?”

            Josh nods his head, a bit confused. “Yeah, I got them in the back of my car along with some of his stuff. Why?”

            Elizabeth makes a desperate face and what she is up to instantly settles in. Frantically, he shakes his head. “Hell no,” he disagrees in a panicked tone. “You are insane. There are other ways to do this safely.”

            “We don’t have time to come up with a better plan, Josh, and I’m not sure if you’ve been listening to them, but Klaus is about ready to march his way other there himself,” she explains urgently. “I need you to help me do this. Elijah will give you the details if you go find him. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I wasn’t positive this is the only way.”

            When he nods his head in reluctant agreement, she stands from the coffee table and leaves Josh to resume his scrolling.

            The wall of tension she feels when she walks into the room is thick and it’s almost enough to suffocate her. She stares at the broken glass and furniture around her feet, stepping around the destruction carefully. After the amount of yelling she has heard today, it surprises her to not find a few holes in the walls as well. She slowly walks to the side of the bed Klaus lies on, her eyes looking over his unusually stiff body. He has his hands folded behind his head and his eyes are glued to the ceiling, completely ignoring her presence. This is the calmest she has seen him the past twenty-four hours and although she would like to think that he is actually listening to his siblings by holding off, she knows all too well that this kind of calm is extremely dangerous. He’s thinking of ways to get Hope back; he’s planning carefully and methodically. Exhaling the breath she had been holding, she turns her gaze to the shoes that he still wears and she has to fight her incoming eye roll. He’s getting dirt on his comforter.

            “Penny for your thoughts?” She offers in a kind voice.

            Although he hardly moves a single muscle, he finally acknowledges her presence. “Hayley and my daughter are in the clutches of the enemy. I’m thinking of all of the ways I plan to torture Charles once I get them back.”

            Elizabeth nods her head having already expected an answer that would follow along those lines. “Have you made a plan yet? I know you’ve been fighting with Elijah and Rebekah…”

            The guilt that burns in her stomach for even asking him about his plans when she knows what she will be doing in a few short hours is eating her alive. It feels wrong to go behind his back like this. To lie and to beat around the bush… this isn’t how she operates. However, even though she hates it, this is a necessary evil. She and the others cannot move forward with their plans if Klaus has managed to come up with something solid.

            “Short of tearing through his men, traumatizing my daughter in the process, and ripping Charles’ pathetic heart form his chest… No,” he admits and the frustration in his voice rings clear as bells. “If it wasn’t for my daughter, I would have been on his doorstep by now.”

            Double-edged relief washes over her. The plan is still safe. Climbing onto his bed, she sits on the other side of him and pulls one of his hands out from under his head. . She carefully rests his hand on the palm of one of hers and with her other, she traces the creases in his palm. What Klaus said was right. If it wasn’t for Hope, he for sure would have found a way to get to Charles and kill him already. He has changed a great deal since she came into his life. Sighing quietly, she squeezes his hand.

            “They’re going to be okay, Klaus,” she says. “I promise you.”

            Propping himself up on his elbow, Klaus looks deeply into her eyes. He can sense something is tugging at her, but he decides to ignore his intuition. “I do not want Hope to live in a cell. I will kill him for what he has taken from me.”

            “She won’t. We’ll get them back. We just have to be careful about it,” she reassures hesitantly and when he doesn’t respond, she decides it’s time to bridge another topic. “Lyanna told me something I think you should know,” she begins slowly. For hours she has been trying to find the best way to explain this mess and nothing seems right. Klaus waits patiently for her to speak, allowing her to take her time. “For years, I have had this nagging feeling in the back of my head. I couldn’t figure it out until last night. When I was captured, Lyanna messed with my head until I couldn’t recognize who Charles is to me. It makes sense now that I think about it and can see it clearly… Lyanna told me that Charles is my father. William Walker.”

            Klaus stiffens, taking the news in bit by bit. It would have been easier on all of them to accept that this man was just a stranger who decided to snatch Elizabeth away, but to know now that this man is her and Lyanna’s father makes him all the more demented and sinister. On the bright side, he will enjoy killing him much more now.

            “Don’t think too much on it right now, love,” he advises. “Our focus needs to be on Hope and Hayley.”

Sighing, Elizabeth nods. All of this is so wrong. None of this was supposed to happen and she feels entirely at fault for it. Because she cannot risk letting her thoughts eat away at her, she bends down at kisses his soft lips. He kisses her back, just as eager for a temporary distraction as she is. Cupping the side of his face, she kisses him as if the world is ending. She wants to feel close to him, she _needs_ it. Her necklace dangles above his chest and as his hand slips into her hair, she hums softly. When she pulls back, she looks deeply into his eyes and gently runs her thumb over his bottom lip.

            “Why are you looking at me like that?” He asks.

            Elizabeth furrows her eyebrows. “Like what?”

            “Like you’re trying to memorize this moment,” he muses. “I can see it in your eyes… feel it in the way you kiss me.”

            Tension prickles up her spine. It’s true… she is trying to memorize this moment. She has no idea when she will be able to have this again. For all she knows, this could be her last opportunity to kiss him; this could be her last opportunity to love him. Trying not to feed into his theory, Elizabeth smiles softly and pushes his hair back from his forehead. She then bends down to leave a kiss there.

            “For five hundred years, I have wondered what it would be like to love you like this,” she says. “You’ll have to forgive me for finding it to be a bit surreal. I’m still afraid you’ll change your mind and try to send me away.”

            Klaus rolls his eyes, resting a hand on her upper thigh. “Don’t make it sound so tempting,” he teases.

            Elizabeth shakes her head and kisses him once more on his waiting lips, making this one last twice as long as the last. Pulling back, she climbs off the bed and trails her hand down his arm.

            “I have to go speak to Rebekah about a few things,” she lies. “Promise me you won’t do anything irrational?”

            Klaus sighs, sitting up finally. “Will it make you feel better if I promise?” He asks. She nods. “Then, I promise.”

            Elizabeth says nothing more as she turns to walk away and as she does, a tear rolls down her cheek. What she is about to do is probably one of the hardest things she will ever do in her long life. Betrayal. Choking back her second thoughts, she holds her head up high and tracks down Rebekah knowing that this is for the best. She’s doing whatever it takes to get Hope and Hayley out. That is all she has ever done for this family and now that a child’s life is on the line, she cannot back of this.

            Fidgeting with her hands, Elizabeth squeezes her eyes shut and tries not to dwell on how deeply conflicted she feels. “How did Klaus react?” She asks in reference to the boundary spell.

            Marcel snickers darkly even though he knows there is very little humor to be found in this situation. “He was less than pleased. Rebekah stayed behind to keep him calm. She told him it's for the best... Reassured him that you know what you're doing. Honestly, I’ve never seen him so mad before.”

            “Let’s not forget that he smashed most of the furniture in the room and attacked Elijah for encouraging the plan,” Josh says. The sight of Klaus bursting into rage still terrifies him.

            Elizabeth rests her head back against her seat. She will never be able to make it up to him. She was right to believe he would never be okay with this. “Somebody please tell me we’re doing the right thing?” She asks openly, her voice breaking. “Tell me I’m not insane for doing this.”

            Josh looks over to her, a frown on his face. “Even though I still don’t like it, you’re doing the right thing here,” he says upliftingly. “This is for Hope and Hayley.”

            Shaking her head, she looks down at her hands that rest in her lap. She balls them into fists and releases them again, trying to keep her mind clear. “Charles won’t let me go this time. Once I’m there, he’s never going to take his eyes off of me.”

            “Elizabeth, you won't be there forever,” Josh reassures. “We know where you are and if you cannot get out within a week, we'll come to get you. Elijah promised he won't let Charles keep you and once Klaus is free, I doubt he's going to sit back and wait around. None of us will.”

            “Don't even focus on me,” Elizabeth says sternly. “Your only job is to get Hayley and Hope to Mystic Falls. Caroline will be waiting.”

            Josh sighs deeply, looking sadly at his friend. “Don't talk like that. You're just as important as they are. We'll come get you.”

            Aiden smiles from the front seat, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend even though the action cannot be seen. “Josh the hero, everybody.”

            “No, I mean it…” Josh argues lightly. “Elizabeth is putting a ton on the line to get Hope and Hayley out.”

            Nobody else can think of anything to say. In silence, the drive continues until they pull up to the edge of the woods far outside of town. Marcel cuts the engine and climbs out, waiting for Elizabeth to do the same. She looks up at him and takes her jacket off, passing it over to Josh who remains in the car.

            “His facility is straight through there,” Marcel says as he points. “Once you get Hope and Hayley out, Hayley can track your scent back to us. Just don’t draw any attention to yourself.”

            “Thank you for doing this, Marcel,” Elizabeth says. “I know things were pretty rocky for a while, but I’m glad we’re able to be friends again.”

            Marcel shakes his head, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t talk to me like this is the last time you’ll see me,” he says sternly, pulling her in for a quick hug. “But, in case this is the last time… Thank you for always being there for me when I was growing up. My mother died when I was young, but you managed to do the job just fine.”

            Smiling, Elizabeth gives one last lingering look to her friends before she runs deeply into the woods, picking the dust up behind her as she runs. Finding a wide clearing, she spots Charles’ facility and plants her feet deeply into the ground to stop herself. Listening to her surroundings, she scales up the chain-link fence and drops down on the ground with a nearly silent thud. Creeping along, she is sure to keep herself out of the eyesight of Charles’ human hybrids. Coming around to the backdoor, she pulls onto the lock until it groans and snaps open.

            Elizabeth slips in through the door, being mindful to keep her movements silent. Running impossibly fast through the corridors, she finds herself standing in front of the second-floor cell block. She has no idea if Hope and Hayley are in this cell block, but she’s relying entirely on Charles’ habits. They have to be in here or the plan falls through. Beside the door is a small keypad and from her back pocket, she pulls out Nathan's old card. Quickly, she scans it, pleased that it still works, and slides into the cell block. There are only six cells in here, two of which in use. Running, she skids to a stop in front of the first one. In the far corner is a body, sitting in the shadows.

            “Hayley?” Elizabeth calls in a whisper.

            Surprised, Hayley scrambles to her feet and she runs to the cell door. Her clothes are covered with blood, torn in more places than one. She fought hard. “Elizabeth? What are you doing here?”

            “I'm your ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card,” she explains. “Where is Hope?”

            Hayley points down the line of cells and Elizabeth zips to the second to last one. This one is right beside her old cell, the very one she spent nearly eleven years of her life in. Hope sits on the dirty floor with her knees held to her chest, her head hanging low. From what she can see, Hope has not yet been harmed. Quickly, Elizabeth grasps the bars of the door even though they burn her flesh and she pulls with every ounce of strength, gritting her teeth and groaning quietly as she pulls. Hope looks up with tears streaking down her cheeks, surprised to see someone she recognizes. 

            “Aunt Elizabeth?” She asks, a spark of anticipation and joy in her voice.

            Taking in a short breath, Elizabeth pulls until the door gives way and slides open. Moving fast, she bends into the cell and swoops Hope into her arms. She then runs to Hayley's door and sets the young Mikaelson down. Grasping the door, she whimpers and she pulls as hard as she can. The door lock gives way and it slides open with ease. Hayley runs out and pulls her daughter into her arms, hugging her close to her body.

            “Thanks. I tried breaking the door, but it's spelled from the inside,” Hayley explains as she strokes her daughter's hair.

            Elizabeth nods, already knowing what it’s like to be in one of those cells, and points to the door. “You need to leave through the back and you need to move quickly. Marcel is waiting for you with a car. He'll get you out of here. You two are going somewhere safe.”

            Hayley draws her eyebrows together, worried. “What about you?”

            Shrugging her shoulders, Elizabeth shifts her eyes down to Hope. “I'm staying behind. Charles and Lyanna will leave you alone if he has me,” she says with less confidence that she intended. “I’m doing whatever I have to in order to protect you two.”

            “What about Klaus?” Hayley presses, urgency in her quiet voice. “He never would have agreed to this plan. Switching anyone out... He _loves_ you. A-And I know Hope is his daughter, but–”

            “–It wasn't a choice for him to make. I wasn't going to make him choose between his daughter and me. We have him trapped in the study to do this. I can handle whatever Charles decides to throw at me, but I wasn't going to let you guys stay here,” she says with a nervous laugh. “You need to leave before it's too late. I'll be okay.”

            With one last lingering look, Hayley scoops up Hope and they're gone. Elizabeth blinks a couple of times, willing herself to stay strong. Suddenly, the alarm sounds begin to blare and the red pulsating lights start to flash. As the guards fill into the hallway with their dart guns pointed up, Elizabeth puts her hands behind her head and she stares at them fearlessly. Charles shoves past them all, a look of anger on his face. He pauses at the sight of Elizabeth and he shakes his head, a disgusting smile on his face.

            “And I had so many plans for the hybrid girl,” he says with a sigh. “What have you done with them?”

            Elizabeth glowers at Charles, still refusing to accept the fact this man is her father. “I got them out of here. This has always been about me and now you have me again.”

            “Well, you are certainly braver than I gave you credit for,” he muses.

            And as she is backed into her old cell by the guards, she knows that she is stronger than she has ever been before. Things will not be like last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going behind Klaus' back... because that always works so well. 
> 
> I took a few days off from writing and it really helped clear my head. Sometimes it can be so easy to bury yourself in whatever work you are doing. Between writing on this story, the coming sequel, a couple other stories I'm working on for other fandoms, AND working AND getting ready for my fall term of college... I completely swamped myself. Don't forget to take breaks. :)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	19. The Apples and the Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Refusing to allow Charles to break her again, Elizabeth fights to keep her herself strong in the face of her worst fears.

"Elijah, have you seen Elizabeth?" Klaus asks as he walks into the room, his worry nagging at him. "She seems to have disappeared."

            Pausing the conversation he had been discussing with Rebekah, Elijah turns to his brother and comes to terms with what is about to happen. "Brother, I'm afraid there is something we must discuss," he starts, hearing Rebekah's subtle intake of air.

            Confused, Klaus stops in the middle of the room and he crosses his arms over his chest, not enjoying the way his sister is looking at him. "Has something happened to her?"

            "That is rather difficult to answer. In short, no. The last I saw her, she was perfectly fine," Elijah replies wearily. "However... You must know Elizabeth felt a great deal of guilt for what happened last night and through the help of Marcel and myself, we came up with a plan."

            "You've come up with a plan and didn't think it was important to tell me until now?" Klaus demands, glaring at his older brother.

            "Nik, we didn't tell you because we knew you wouldn't like it. What's done is done..."

            Getting the sense that his siblings have done something purely idiotic, Klaus narrows his eyes. "What the bloody hell have you two done?"

            Taking control over the conversation again, Elijah takes a half step closer to his brother. "I warned you that in order to get Hope and Hayley back, we would have to be exceptionally careful. Until this afternoon, I had no idea on how to do that safely until I overheard Marcel running an idea by Elizabeth. It was idiotic and was sure to fail, but we managed to solidify it and I believe it will work," he begins. "As we speak, Elizabeth is on her way to Charles' facility with Josh, Marcel, and Aiden. When she arrives, she will slip into the facility and get Hope and Hayley out... At which point, she will stay behind."

            Klaus' body stiffens as he listens carefully to his brother's explanation, caught off guard by how far along it already is. They all went behind his back. "So, you mean to tell me Elizabeth has gone off on a suicide mission to give herself up for my daughter and Hayley?" He demands, his familiar temper crawling into his voice.

            Knowing that he has to be extremely careful with his words now, Elijah nods his head. "This was our quickest option and our safest, brother. I wouldn't have allowed this if I thought she wasn't capable."

            "And what if she fails, then?" He asks, growing angrier by the second. "What if she gets there and makes a mistake? Then we'd have three lives to save, wouldn't we?"

            “Niklaus, please. You know I would never put Elizabeth’s in harm's way unless it was absolutely necessary. Would you have preferred we left Hope and Hayley there while we sat around doing nothing?” Elijah argues back.

            Getting dangerously close to Elijah, Klaus’ eyes look between his and he jabs his finger against his brother’s chest. “What I would have _preferred_ is a plan that _didn’t_ involve giving our enemies the thing they want the most,” he snarls. “Allowing Elizabeth to switch herself out? Have you lost your mind?”

            Forcibly pulling his jabbing finger away from his chest, Elijah holds his ground. “She knew what she was getting herself into. We already have plans in place to get her back. I won’t let her live out her days in a cell.”

            Klaus scoffs and turns to the coffee table in the center of the room, kicking it with such a force that it slams into the opposite wall. “No, I won’t stand for this,” he snaps. Turning on his heel, he goes to march straight out of the room but runs into something invisible. He narrows his eyes and presses his palm against the invisible force, feeling the boundary they have put in place. “You’ve trapped me in here.”

            “Nik, Elizabeth is like my sister,” Rebekah speaks up. “It kills me that she is putting herself in harm's way, but I have faith that she will succeed. “When she gets them out, Marcel will take them far away from here. Caroline and the Salvatores will protect them.”

            “And just what makes you think Lyanna will not destroy Elizabeth the moment she realizes what has happened?” Klaus demands, turning to face his siblings once more.

            Elijah looks down, knowing that he has to bring up what he knows. “Lyanna cannot kill Elizabeth,” he reveals.

            Snapping his eyes over to his brother, Klaus balls his hands into fists as he tries to keep the cap on his anger for a little while longer. “I’m going to assume there’s more to that theory of yours.”

            “It’s not a theory, brother,” Elijah clarifies. “Lyanna told me herself last night. She cannot kill Elizabeth. Not directly, at least.”

            “Lyanna paid you a visit and you thought it best to only tell us now?” Klaus asks, squinting a little.

            “I was preoccupied with trying to get the splinters out of Elizabeth’s chest that you refused to help with. Between that and trying to come up with a plan, I didn’t see the relevance,” Elijah defends. “Nevertheless, the fact remains. Lyanna cannot kill Elizabeth and now that we know Charles is Elizabeth’s father, I highly doubt he will kill her. Not after all he has done to try and get her back. She will be fine.”  

            “If you think being sliced open and torn apart is fine–”

            “–Nik! We’re not saying that it’s an ideal situation. Elizabeth has been through this torment before. It’s horrific, but she grew stronger because of it. She knew that by going back, she would be putting herself in that situation again, but she did it for Hope and Hayley. She did it for _you._ She went back knowing that Charles wouldn’t be able to break her down this time. She will be okay.”

            Suddenly snapping in front of Rebekah, Klaus seizes her and shoves her across the room violently. Rebekah slams into the wall and drops down to the floor, falling unconscious. Elijah sighs and reaches out to his brother, only to have his attempt slapped away. He knew Klaus would be angry. He expected absolutely nothing less.

            “You are a fool, Elijah,” Klaus seethes. “When I get out of this boundary spell, I will straighten out this mess you have made.”

            Standing at the entrance of the room, just at the boundary line, Freya watches the situation unfold in front of her. “No, you won’t.”

            Klaus whips around to face her, feeling his anger reach its peak. “You think you can stop me?” He demands.

            “I have a plan in place that will be safer for her,” Freya explains. “In a week, I will be able to perform a spell that will give Elizabeth the help that she needs. If you try to interfere, you will put her in more danger and may even get her killed. Lyanna’s magic is strong, but my magic is pure and I can force my way through. I can help Elizabeth.”

            “If you’re so certain of your plan, why don’t you step over the boundary?” Klaus asks, gesturing to the threshold on the floor.

            Showing no signs of fear, Freya takes the one step necessary to cross the boundary. She doesn’t flinch when Klaus blurs to stand in front of her and she doesn’t look away from his eyes that pry into hers threateningly. And somehow, her resistance is enough to make his true anger explode.

            As blood pools at her bare feet, Elizabeth lifts her head up weakly for the first time in what feels like hours. Through eyes that barely open fully, she glares at the man before her. She is stronger now, no matter how badly damaged her body may seem. Although she remains scared, she will not let him see it. Since breaking away, she has become the person she once was and she refuses to let him take it away from here again.

            “I’m not going to be that _easy_ ,” she spats. Blood splatters onto her bottom lip and she licks it away with the tip of her tongue, feeling the gash on the inside of her cheek.

            Charles smiles at her and sets the scalpel he has been using only minutes before down on the metal tray beside him. “You seem so confident in yourself,” he speculates coldly. “I broke you once before. I made you cower and become who you are meant to be. I can do it again and rest assured, I will.”

            Elizabeth balls her hands into fists and she pulls against the chains that keep them suspended in air. “You honestly have no idea who you are messing with, do you?” She asks, ignoring the pain in her throat. “Do you know what’s going to happen when I break free again?”

            Charles crosses his arms over his chest, a look of amusement in his eyes. He is enjoying her moment of morale and he will be sure to make it her last. “Enlighten me, Lizzie,” he entices. “I’m dying to hear your latest thoughts on the matter.”

            “When I break free, and I _will_ break free, I am going to come back and take your empire from your hands,” she explains. “I am going to watch as my family takes everything from you, I will watch as Niklaus Mikaelson breaks every bone in your body and I will watch as he finishes you off. You will _burn_ for the things you have done to me.”

            Charles laughs loudly and lifts the scalpel from the tray, the tip coated in her blood. He points it at her threateningly as he steps in close, his face inches from hers. “You think you can scare me with worthless threats?” He asks her tauntingly. “Your family will be torn apart by Lyanna. Everyone you have come to love will burn in eternal hell for what they are.”

            Elizabeth pulls against the chains once more, her feet barely maintaining the traction she needs to keep herself standing in the pool of her now cold and sticky blood. “You chastise me for throwing threats in your face and yet you turn around and do it to me,” she laughs. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, _father._ ”

            Squinting his eyes, Charles stakes a step closer to the old vampire. His eyes search through hers, his anger boiling underneath his skin. “Lyanna told you.”

            “I’ll admit, Lyanna did make it difficult for me to understand your familiarities, but I can understand now why you have an undying obsession with me,” she spats. “I am the daughter you couldn’t corrupt. I am the daughter who ran away with the family of Original vampires. You are punishing me for turning my back on my family.”

            Charles glares at her, his upper lip twitching with fury. “Do not preach to me about my actions, my daughter,” he growls. “You think your knowledge will save you?”

            Elizabeth scoffs, refusing to bend to his anger. It does, however, bring awareness to how numb her legs have grown. The blood bags to her right are nearly full now. “Please, do not call me your daughter. You lost that right the minute you corrupted Lyanna with your poison.”

            “Lyanna was never corrupted,” he argues. “She was _born_ for greater things and she is stronger than you. She is better than anything you will ever be.”

            Rolling her head back slightly, Elizabeth laughs. Surely, he cannot believe that. “Charles, if you believe true power can be pulled from darkness, then you need to take a look at history,” she says tiredly. She barely has the energy now to keep this conversation going. “Your life has been touched by evil and when the day comes, I will personally make sure you are punished.”

            Furiously, Charles stabs the scalpel into Elizabeth’s chest and she whimpers, losing her footing on the ground. Dangling, she pants heavily and looks up at Charles with enmity. One day, she will seek revenge. Breathing raggedly, she looks down at the scalpel. It is only a few inches from her heart, the only place on her body that Charles has not torn apart. He needs her alive and he will not risk killing her for the sake of knowledge.

            “There is just one thing I cannot wrap my head around,” Charles then says. “You know what happens to you are here. Why would you give yourself up in order to set free a hybrid and her freak of nature daughter? Whom, may I add, she conceived with the bastard.”

            Elizabeth is actually genuinely confused by how dense this man is when this is the same man who prides himself on his scientific accomplishments and knowledge. “Are you seriously asking me why I gave myself up for a mother and her child?” She asks, her voice stuck in a state of disbelief. “Hope is a _child_ and if you think I would leave her in your care for a single moment, then I would suggest a brain scan.”

            Charles hums lightly and he rips the scalpel from Elizabeth’s chest, splattering blood onto his white lab coat. “Or, alternatively, is it because Hope is the daughter of the man you love?”

            She really should have taken off her locket before giving herself over. Now, Charles has all of the information he needs to use against her. It is something she will regret, but she will not let him use it against her. Not this time. “Please do not pretend like you know anything about my life,” she snaps bitterly as the wound on her chest closes.

            Charles licks his bottom lip and gently pushes her hair from her face, exposing her beauty to his eyes. Although she has never thought much of herself, she is truly a piece of art. “You are a famous girl, Lizzie. I know more about your life than you think I do and how you could allow yourself to love such _filth_ is beyond me.”

            He’s trying to anger her, she knows that, but she cannot help but feed into it. She needs to stall if she’s going to last a week here. By the end of her stay, Hayley and Hope will be safe in Mystic Falls. “Filth?” She asks. “Do not criticize me for whom I choose to love when Lyanna so helplessly fell for Elijah. They have quite a history. You should ask her about it sometime.”

            Charles laughs as if she told a hilarious joke, only he does not realize how right she is. The history between Elijah and Lyanna is a powerful one and it abruptly ended the day she chose the dark magic. Elizabeth watches as Charles tends to the blood bags. He pulls the IV tubes from various parts of her body knowing that if he pulls any more blood from her, she will be too weak for the rest of the work he would like to do with her today.

            “Lizzie, if you wish to know why I harm you, then you must ask yourself what you have done wrong,” Charles reveals rather ominously.

            Elizabeth lifts her drooping head again to squint at him as she tries to understand how any of what she has done can even compare to the magnitude of torture he has inflicted upon her. “I’ve killed people, some innocent. I have fought in wars that were started by my family and Lyanna’s death rests on my hands,” she summarizes. However, she left out on small detail in her long history. “When I died at the ball, I awoke in transition. I chose to feed on human blood,” she adds on with an eye roll.

            Her choice to feed could hardly be considered as evil. She fed on a human in her hunger, but she had a self-control within her that she wasn’t supposed to have. Although she was obsessed with the craving and the need to keep drinking, she pulled away. She spared the life of the human she fed upon and compelled him to forget. It was not a conscious decision, but a decision she made nonetheless. And since, she has become something to be respected and feared, but not because she is evil. She is feared because of the very people who took her in all those years ago. She is feared because of the man she has fallen in love with.

            Charles smiles practically from ear to ear and he leans in close to Elizabeth, holding either side of her face in his rough, calloused hands. “Yes, you _chose_ to feed,” he says eagerly. “Why did you feed, Lizzie? How could you do something so evil?”

            _Hypocrite._ Elizabeth thinks about her answer for a while. She knows that if she does not supply him with something, she will face hours of torture until she explains herself. By now, she understands it’s easier to remain unharmed if she complies. She has played this game before and, if she needs to, she will play it over and over again until the end times creep up on them. That is what she owes Hope and Hayley.

            “I was in love and the idea of being a vampire never frightened me,” she explains. “When I awoke in transition, I knew what was happening to me and yet I was okay with it. I knew I died and I knew what choice was before me. You have no idea what the thirst is like and you will never know. I chose to feed because I wanted the chance to be greater. I wanted the chance to be more than what I was and by doing so, I granted myself an immortal life with the family and man I love.”

            Charles stares at her as if he is trying to connect something in his mind. Her story is innocent enough, but it still feeds his insatiable hatred for her and what she is. “Love. You made the choice for _love_ ,” he criticizes. “That is your weakness. It’s a shame.”

            She feels as if she is going in circles. No matter what she says or does, he will always come back around to the same points. She is weak, she is an abomination, she is evil. It’s an old story that has been told time and time again and she no longer feels the need to deny it. He will believe that he chooses to believe and nothing will change that. He is corrupted and tainted, he has no humanity nor a soul. He is only a walking bag of bones laced with darkness.

            “If you want to take that route, sure… Love is my greatest weakness,” she agrees. “But love is also my strength. Haven’t you ever wondered how I kept my humanity on?”

            Charles squints his eyes as if he truly does not understand the concept. Is he so far gone that the concept of love is lost to him? She has no idea. The man in front of her is not the father that raised her for the first fifteen years of her life. She may as well be speaking to Satan himself.

            “Lizzie, I want you to understand something,” Charles then says. He steps back from her and straightens his posture, adjusting his coat as he does. “I will do everything in my power to take away everything that makes you who you are.”

            As if on cue, the heavy doors to their right opens and in walks Lyanna. She has her hair pinned high again and she wears black boots that match her red blouse. Lyanna pauses at the top of the steps and Elizabeth looks to her with what little energy she has left.

            “You turned yourself in,” Lyanna states. Walking down the steps, she sets her purse down on a nearby stool. “Why on earth would you be so incompetent?”

            Charles does not give her the chance to answer. “She set the hybrid and her freak daughter free,” he explains. “Our dear Lizzie did it out of love.”

            Lyanna laughs loudly and she walks over to her younger sister, the heels of her boots clicking on the cement ground. “Oh, you stupid child. As if love means anything. Look where it has gotten you,” she muses with a grin. “You’re chained to the ceiling and beaten. You look pathetic.”

            “Contrary to what you may believe,” Elizabeth says with a laugh that rings through the lab, “I have been called worse.”

            Lyanna glowers at her little sister, turning to their father. “She has grown quite cocky, hasn’t she?” She asks, her hands on her petite hips.

            Charles nods once, a smile toying on his lips. “Yes, she has been quite talkative today. We’ve learned much about each other.”

            “Well, maybe I should teach her a lesson,” Lyanna muses.

            Elizabeth takes in a deep breath as her sister walks towards her. She stares at Lyanna with anger burning in her dark eyes and Lyanna smiles, placing her hands on each of her temples. Elizabeth jerks away, but Lyanna is persistent and holds her still. In a sudden rush, pain explodes in her brain and she seals her jaw shut, refusing to scream. As tears well up in her eyes, she stares back at Lyanna and the witch laughs, forcing more magic onto her. Groaning, Elizabeth loses her footing and slips in her blood, unable to hoist herself back up.

            Breathing heavily, she fights her sister’s hold and curses loudly. Her vision is spotted and she can hardly make sense of what she is doing. Thrashing and kicking, she does whatever she can to get away. Nevertheless, her attempts do nothing and through the intense pain that she feels, she droops to one side and closes her eyes. She cannot fight anymore.

            When she awakens, she is in a dark room. She blinks her eyes and lifts her head up, adjusting to the new atmosphere. The room is cold and the floor is dusty. To her right, there is a small window at the top of the wall and it allows in the moonlight and brings a soft, dull glow to the room. Across the room, sitting in front of her, she can make out legs and as her eyes focus, she makes out who it is exactly she sits with. Her heart skips a beat and her breath catches in her throat. This cannot be happening.

            “Klaus,” she croaks. She pushes herself from the wall and onto her hands and knees. Slowly she crawls to him, her hands digging into the dust on the cold ground. “K-Klaus…”

            Unmoving, he sits still with dark bags beneath his closed eyes and he doesn’t breathe. With a shaking hand, she angles his face into the moonlight. His body is cold, like ice. Breathing quickly, she shakes her head and checks for a pulse. She finds none.

            “No…” she breathes. He cannot be dead, he cannot die. “Klaus, please wake up.”

            Giving up on the task before too long, Elizabeth rises to her feet and looks around once more. There is no door in this room, only the single window that is in no way big enough for someone to squeeze through. She could break through it, she supposes, but she is much too weak. From behind her, Klaus awakes with a violent gasp for air and his lycanthrope eyes scan the room, looking for the threat that brought him here. Quickly, Elizabeth drops to her knees and extends a hand out to him, but she does not touch him.

            “Where… are we?” He asks. His voice sounds considerably worse than hers.

            Elizabeth sighs with relief, happy to hear that he is not trapped in some mental delusion. “I’m not sure. Probably Charles’ facility,” she says. “I-I woke up here… I don’t know what happened.”

            Klaus squeezes his eyes shut and exhales slowly. He almost seems hurt. “Your sister was quite determined to drag me here,” he says slowly. He’s completely out of breath. “It took a lot of dark magic.”

            Moving his arm, he reveals the spot on his dark blue sweater that has been soaked through with blood. Alarmed, Elizabeth peels the fabric back and is horrified to see a deep gash on his abdomen. Around the wound is the start of desiccation, his skin has begun to turn gray. Elizabeth shakes her head, simply refusing to believe what she is seeing.

            “No, this isn’t possible,” she says in denial. “What happened?”

            Klaus winces as he tries to sit up and he gazes down at the gash, a touch of a frown on his lips. “Lyanna came to the compound. She took out Freya… She destroyed everything,” he explains, excruciating pain and regret tied into his tired voice. “Rebekah was upset and went after her. Then Elijah… then me. She took them all down and now I’m here.”

            Elizabeth brings a hand to her mouth. She feels as if she’s dreaming. Originals cannot die. How can Lyanna possess nearly enough power to even put a scratch on their skin? She refuses to believe it. This is a nightmare.

            “Klaus… I’m… I don’t understand. This isn’t possible. Lyanna can’t–”

            “– _Please stop talking_ ,” he snaps. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now and I’m dying. Had you just stayed put, none of this would have happened.”

            He’s angry with her and he blames her for the horrible tragedy that took place in their home. She feels her heart sink lower and lower with each passing second. Is it really her fault? Fighting back her tears, she stands and takes several steps back from Klaus. She feels like she is suffocating, her heart slamming against her chest.

            “This isn’t real,” she breathes as she brings her hands to her hair.

            Klaus rolls his eyes and weakly climbs to his feet with what little energy he has left. “What? You can’t handle the fact that you got my family killed?” He asks coldly. “You sound like a child.”

            Shaking her head in the strong denial she feels, she slumps against the wall just below the window. Klaus is in front of her then and he wraps his hand around her throat, lifting her off the ground. She grabs at his hand and looks down at him with wide eyes as she chokes against his hold.

            “Klaus, please,” she begs.

            “This entire mess is your fault,” he yells. “Lyanna, Charles… All of it. I should have killed you when I met you. I would have been better off for it.”

            She does not want to fight him. Kicking desperately, she takes in many short breathes and never breaks her eye contact with him. He has never been this mad at her. The look in his eyes is haunting and it makes her stomach twist into knots, she recognizes this look. Fighting harder, Elizabeth yells and claws at his hand.

            “You do not deserve to live when my family lies dead,” he seethes. His true face is beginning to expose itself, his fangs dropping. “Beg for your life.”

            Elizabeth reaches a hand out and she clasps it onto his shoulder, pushing back with every ounce of strength she can muster. “You… You don’t want to kill… me,” she says through what little air he lets into her windpipes. “Klaus, please try to see… please…”

            Klaus laughs wickedly and tightens her hold, making her thrash once again. “Oh, but I do,” he corrects. “Your problems caused the ones I love to die. You should be so lucky that I do not rip your heart out right now. Instead, I’m going to make it hurt.”

            Moving fast, Klaus drops her to the floor and he sinks his sharp fangs into her neck. Crying out, she shoves against him and slams her fist into his wound. Stumbling back, Klaus yells and growls at her, pouncing for attack. Moving fast, she jumps out of the way, but he is much faster than she is. Grabbing her by her hair, he throws her to the ground. There is simply not enough time before he is plunging his hand into her chest. He will kill her.

            “Klaus, please,” she sobs. “Please don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.”

            Smiling, Klaus begins to pull and Elizabeth finds herself making the most difficult decision of her life. Slamming her fist into his chest, Elizabeth grabs his heart and pulls it from his chest first. The hold he has on her loosens with the last flicker of life in his eyes, he looks down on her in disbelief. Slowly, he collapses down as his body turns gray. Crying harder than she has in years, Elizabeth drops his heart and clutches onto his back, holding his lifeless body close to hers. She did it. She made the once choice she never hoped to make.

            “I’m so sorry…”

            Pulling her hands away, Lyanna smiles when Elizabeth jumps awake. Breathing heavily, she looks around at the room and she tries to wrap her mind around what had happened to her. Looking up, she sees that her hands are still chained and that’s when the horrible realization sinks in. She should have known it from the moment she woke up.

            “Welcome back, sister,” Lyanna smiles.

            Angry, Elizabeth cannot help but show her true face. She pulls hard against the chains that keep her restrained and she leans as close to Lyanna as she can get. “What the hell did you do to me?” She snarls. 

Lyanna laughs and holds her hands up, her fingers moving. “I did what I do best, little sister,” she explains. “I dug through that pretty little mind of yours and I showed you the one thing you feared the most. I made you live it. The thought of your pretty boyfriend dying is too much for you to bear. That’s what it would take for you to flip your switch, wouldn’t it? To watch him die?”

            “You don’t have the power to kill an Original,” she spats.

            “No, but I always have contingency plans, little sister. Maybe it won’t be my hands that tears apart everything you have come to love and maybe you will succeed in beating me, but something else will fall into place if you do. Could be days after or maybe years, but I can promise you… One way or another, I will get my revenge.”

            Growling, Elizabeth continues to pull on the chains until they start to groan. Lyanna looks up at them with slight worry knowing that if her little sister gets free, she will die. Grabbing a syringe from Charles’ tray of tools, she forcibly stabs it into Elizabeth’s neck. Jerking away, Elizabeth shakes her head and fights to stay awake.

            “All will make sense soon, Lizzie,” Lyanna says in a kind voice. “I do hope that when this is all over, you will see reason and join me.”

            Fighting the sedative, Elizabeth laughs. “Rot in hell,” she seethes.

            “You’ve sent me there once already, little sister,” Lyanna says with a light sigh. “I will not be going back.”

            As Lyanna saunters away with a laugh, Elizabeth feels her eyelids droop closed and she is, unwillingly, forced into a deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uploads may be a little wonky for the next few chapters or so. I got really busy all of sudden and I don't have as much time as I usually do to work on writing :)


	20. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beaten and broken down, Elizabeth is given a chance to break free.

**_1524_ **

_Elizabeth watches the storm from her window, watching as the tree in the front yard bends from the harsh winds._

_“I have started to wonder if it will ever stop raining,” Klaus says from the doorway._

_Elizabeth turns around, flattening her dress as she does. He appears to have been there for a while, watching her she had her back turned. “It is quite rude to walk into a woman’s bedroom without knocking,” she reminds him. “Have you completely forgotten your manners?”_

_Klaus smiles and gestures to her open bedroom door. “I figured since the door was open, you were accepting visitors. My apologies.”_

_Making an impassive face, Elizabeth walks to the mirror that stands in the corner of her room. “Is there something that I can do for you, Niklaus?” She asks knowingly. He hardly pays her any visits without wanting something from her. “Has Elijah bored you already?”_

_“I’ve actually come to see if you knew where my brother is,” he says, correcting her. “I have yet to see him all evening. I’ve started to wonder if he has found trouble.”_

_Elizabeth looks to Klaus through the mirror, raising an eyebrow. “You must not have looked very hard. He was with Lyanna last I saw him this afternoon. Surely he cannot be too far.”_

_Turning on her heel, she walks promptly past the old hybrid and turns down the hall. Klaus follows closely behind her, keeping his hands folded behind his back as he does. Elizabeth briefly peers into Lyanna’s bedroom, but she finds no one. Growing concerned, she then marches down the stairs and walks across the hall to Elijah’s study. The atmosphere in the room is colder than the rest of the house and she shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. At first, she sees nothing but as she goes to turn, something catches her eye. Behind Elijah’s large desk is Elijah himself. He lies on the floor with a silver dagger stuck into his heart, completely desiccated. Growing angry, Elizabeth turns furiously to Klaus who remains oblivious in the doorway._

_“Is this some kind of joke to you?” She asks heatedly. “What has Elijah done to deserve this punishment again? Did he dare to disagree with you?”_

_Klaus raises his eyebrows, moving so he can see what she sees as well. Sure enough, his brother lies on the floor. “Well, that certainly is a surprise,” he muses. “This was not my doing. Perhaps Elijah tripped and stabbed himself.”_

_“I am not in the mood for jokes, Niklaus,” she seethes. “It’s bad enough you have daggered Rebekah and stored her body somewhere I cannot find. Why have you done this again?”_

_Trying to make her see reason, Klaus points down to his lifeless brother. “Well go on, then. If you don’t believe me, pull the dagger out yourself and ask him. Although I have considered it, this was not done by my hand.”_

_Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth drops down to her knees and she grasps the hilt of the dagger. In one swift pull, she yanks it free of Elijah’s heart. It only takes moments for him to jolt awake and when he does, he violently grasps Elizabeth’s wrists, making it crunch almost. She yelps in surprise, pulling against his strong hold._

_“Elijah, let go of me,” she pleads, twisting to get her hand free._

_Coming to her air, Klaus bends down and forces Elijah’s hand off of her. “Brother, breathe. What happened to you?”_

_“As if you don’t know,” Elijah groans, sitting up. “Tricking Lyanna to dagger me? You must have tapped into a new level of boredom, brother.”_

_Rolling his eyes, Klaus stands up straight and throws his hands into the air out of irritation. “Contrary to what you and Elizabeth may believe, I had absolutely nothing to do with this. Lyanna did not act on my orders.”_

_“So, you’re saying my sister did this all on her own?” Elizabeth asks, her eyebrows drawn together with worry._

_“Now that I think about it,” Elijah says as he stretches his neck, “I believe that is exactly what happened. Before using the dagger, she mentioned something about not wanting two Originals running around.”_

_Taking the dagger from Elizabeth’s hands, Klaus makes an amused face. “It seems our little Lyanna has finally gone mad. Has her tortured existence finally made her crack?”_

_“This is not a laughing matter, Klaus,” Elizabeth snaps. “Elijah, where has Lyanna gone?”_

_“I have absolutely no idea,” he sighs._

_“We need to find her,” Elizabeth urges, standing. She then rips the dagger back out of Klaus’ hands. She will find a way to destroy them someday._

_“And I suppose you know what we must do when we find her?” Klaus asks both of them, his hands folding together as he starts thinking of a plan._

_“Yes,” Elijah agrees as he pulls himself off of the ground. “We must kill her.”_

_Elizabeth’s eyes widen and she turns to Elijah, unsure if she heard him right. “Kill her?” She asks, voice wavering. “You are certainly not suggesting that we kill my sister, Elijah?”_

_Flattening his dress coat, Elijah weighs the issue at hand carefully in his mind. It pains him to even consider it, but they are at the end of their rope. “I believe Lyanna has become completely lost in her dark magic. We must do this to protect ourselves and to protect those around us.”_

_Elizabeth shakes her head, looking between the brothers. "No, there must be another way. Lyanna has grown dark, yes, but we simply cannot kill her."_

_"Love, we're out of options," Klaus says carefully. "How many times can we compel the townsfolk to ignore her murders before the entire country finds out what kind of monster she has become? She has already drawn the attention of the next town over."_

_Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth glances down at the dagger. She knows Klaus is right, but the thought of killing her sister seems too monstrous. Still, she sets aside her own doubts. "Then we will do what we must."_

Elizabeth runs her hand along the dusty floor, feeling how cool the concrete is beneath her fingers. The blood has long since dried on her skin, but she remains on the floor breathing shallowly. The left side of her rib cage has been broken, her right lung collapsed not too long ago, and her head feels like it has endured twenty-two consecutive concussions. She shouldn’t be awake in this state, she knows. She should be concerning her energy for what will surely happen to her tomorrow. Nevertheless, the concept of sleep has become something of a farce to her. She cannot close her eyes for a single moment without seeing the flashes of all of the horrors that has happened to her. For as old as she is, she wishes she could be stronger. But the trauma that has been thrust upon her… it dominates over her mind once again. _One more day._ She only has to survive it all for one more day. Charles won’t win this time.

            As her eyes begin to blur with fresh tears, something moves in the corner of her cell. Slowly, she moves her heavy head to look and she sees absolutely nothing. Maybe the hallucinations have started again or maybe she has finally cracked under the stress of trying to keep herself sane? Wheezing under the weight of her pain, she returns her gaze to her hand. It’s delicate and it’s covered in her dried blood. This hand has seen and done many terrible things in her long life. Sniffling, she takes the take to understand just how close to desiccation she truly is. Her veins feel like sandpaper and they burn, thirsty for blood. Her heart, barely beating, needs to be fed before too long. She’s starving. Then, just as she is about to close her eyes, she notices a pair of combat boots standing no more than a foot away from her.

            Gradually, she shifts her eyes up to the man who stands before her. His green eyes stare down at her broken body with sorrow and he crouches down to rest his hand on her back. She cannot feel his touch. She continues to stare up at him, unsure of what she is looking at. He seems so alive and whole… has she finally died?

            “Nathan?” She croaks weakly.

            Nathan delivers a brilliant smile, one that brings out his dimples. Softly, he begins to stroke her back in hopes she will start to feel it. “Good,” he says cheerfully. “You can finally see me.”

            Elizabeth weakly pulls her eyebrows together, unable to do much more than that to express her deep confusion. Is this another one of Lyanna’s mind games? “You’re supposed to be dead… I watched you die, Nathan.”

            “Believe me, I am dead. It kinda sucks,” he laughs quietly. “I was one of the causalities of this particular war. My wife has no idea what happened to me. She thinks I disappeared.”

            Elizabeth stiffly extends her hand to try and touch him, but her hand goes right through his knee. “I’m hallucinating,” she whispers. “You’re not real.”

            Nathan shakes his head and somehow, someway, he is able to push her hair from her wonderful face. He hates that it’s not as full as life and joy as it normally is. “Not this time, sis. Freya is working pretty hard back at home to make this possible. Klaus is grateful for what you did for Hope and Hayley, but he’s pretty pissed off about it,” he explains. “I’m here to help you break out again, Elizabeth. You can do this.”

            As more tears fall from her eyes, she watches as Nathan stands and walks through the bars of her cell door. Effortlessly, he walks right up to the guard that watches her and snaps his neck. Elizabeth watches in disbelief as the guard’s body drops to the floor like a sack of bricks. It’s almost as if Nathan is phasing in between the real world and wherever he ended up after his death. Rolling up the sleeves to his zip-up hoodie, Nathan grasps the cell door and he smiles at her, winking happily. Heaving, he pulls on the door until it gives way and slides right open. He quite likes the strength Freya was able to give him. Next, he grasps the dead guard by the collar of his shirt and he drags the body into the cell, dropping it right beside Elizabeth.

            “Better drink up while it’s still warm,” he jokes. “I also killed the guys in the control room for you. Nobody will know you’re out as long as you get out here within an hour and don’t get caught. I gave you as much time as I could.”

            Elizabeth reaches out to the guard, but her eyes never leave Nathan. She has missed his face. “Thank you,” she says wholeheartedly. “I wish I could have saved you.”

            Nathan shrugs his shoulders and from his neck, he removes his dog tags. He offers them out to her, dropping them on the floor. She is surprised when she discovers she can feel them.

            “I know you buried me with those, but they’re not doing me too much good anymore,” he explains. “I want you to have them. Good luck, Elizabeth. I’ll always watch over you.”

            Then, within a blink of her eye, he is gone. Elizabeth exhales shakily and as her fangs drop, she sinks them into the flesh of the dead guard. Drinking his blood, she slowly begins to feel better and her injuries, that otherwise would have taken several days to repair, start to heal. She feeds and feeds until he is empty and when he is, she gets to her bare feet. From the floor, she scoops up Nathan’s dog tags and she puts them around her neck for safekeeping. From that point, she peers down the hallway of the cell-block before moving out. She will have to thank Freya when she returns home for allowing her to see Nathan once again. She has missed him terribly and seeing him again gave her the nudge that she needed.

            Running fast through the darkness of the facility, she finds herself standing in the doorway of Charles’ office. She peers around to make sure no one is in it before slipping inside, shutting the door behind her. Going straight for his large wooden desk, she rummages for her daylight ring. She has grown to like this one and she will not leave without it. Frustrated when she doesn’t find it, she turns to the large safe behind her. Seeing as she does not have time to search for the code, she grasps the handle and tugs until it snaps and spins open. Heaving the door open, she finds exactly what she is looking for. On the top shelf is her daylight ring and beside it is her white gold locket. Grabbing for both, she slips her ring back onto her right middle finger and pops the latch of the locket open in the moonlight. Klaus’ image stares back at her and she smiles slightly, happy to see that Charles did not destroy or ruin it. _My heart is, and always will be, yours._

            Searching for anything else that might be of value, she spots a pile of leather journals sitting at the bottom of the safe. Crouching down, she picks one up and flips to the first worn pages that smells lightly of cheap cologne and stale water. Gasping lightly, she widens her eyes and cannot stop the grin that appears on her face. These are Charles’ journals, the very same journals that he writes absolutely everything in. This is exactly what she and her family need to get ahead in the fight. Standing, she scans the room for any sort of a bag and manages to procure a small backpack from the coat rack. Dumping out the contents, the loads the bag up with several of the journals until it is nearly full. Turning back to his freakishly neat desk, she finds his most recent one and flips to the last page he wrote in.

 

>             _Lyanna’s rituals are nearly complete. With Elizabeth back in my care where she belongs, everything is falling into place. Soon, the dead will be condemned to hell and Death will walk the earth once more._

Alarmed, Elizabeth snaps the journal closed and stuffs it into the bag, zipping it up. Moving as quietly as she can, she leaves the office and takes a second to reacquaint herself with her surroundings. Her bare feet are cold against the cement ground, her body is healed, and she needs to get to the back exit. Opening her eyes, she runs around the next corner and stops abruptly when she nearly runs into a guard. He jumps at her sudden presence, fumbling for his radio. Long before he can call for help, she pounces on him and sinks her fangs into his neck. She feeds on him until there is not a single drop of blood left in his body. As his body falls to the ground, Elizabeth grasps his shoulders and quickly stuffs him into the nearest broom closet for safekeeping.

            As her heart slams against her chest, she listens closely to her surroundings and only moves when she knows the hallways are clear. Eventually, and most likely soon, someone will find the bodies that both she and Nathan have left behind and when that happens, Charles will send people after her. She knows the drill like the back of her hand from her previous break out attempts. Moving in the shadows, she pauses when she pots another guard standing in front of an entrance to the first cell block. The guard, unfortunately, sense her presence and uses her flashlight to cast some light in the dark hallway. Only catching her in the dull glow for a single second, Elizabeth jumps upwards and grabs onto one of the light fixtures on the ceiling.

            She was, inconveniently, too late. Elizabeth curses when the guard slams her hand on the emergency alarm button, dropping down from the ceiling to snap the guard’s neck. With the last few seconds she has, she feeds for the third time tonight. She needs to be as strong as possible to get home. Wiping her mouth and chin off with the back of her hand she stands tall and cracks her neck. Disorienting alarms erupt in the building and red lights flash, making it hard for her to focus. She runs, barely making to the back exit. As she slips out, something grabs a hold of her and sinks its teeth into her neck. Crying out, Elizabeth reaches back and grabs the person by the neck, throwing them off of her. A woman jumps to her feet, baring teeth. She is not a vampire, nor a werewolf, but if she had to guess, the bite on her neck is chock full of werewolf venom. This is another one of Charles' creations.

            Breathing heavily, Elizabeth takes off towards the fence and jumps over it with ease. Tumbling to the ground, she jumps back up to her feet and runs into the woods without looking to see who follows hers. The trees turn into a blur and her feet dig into the soft dirt as she runs, kicking up behind her as she sprints. The bite on her neck burns and it feels like it’s on fire. If she didn’t have the motivation to get home before, she certainly does now. These bites are extremely lethal, even more so than a normal werewolf bite. Tuning in to her surroundings, she listens for the several pairs of feet that chase after her in the moonlight. Stupidly, she stops running long enough to look behind her. By doing so, she gives a large man enough time to tackle her roughly to the ground. Yelling, she locks her elbows and holds the man as far away from her as she can as he pulls his lips back and bares his fangs. He’s ravenous.

            Using her foot, she kicks the man off of her and she rolls over, clumsily getting up to her feet. The man is quick to grab her ankle and he sinks his fangs into her calf, nearly making her fall to the ground again. Groaning in only frustration, she turns and bends down to plunge her hand through his back. As her true face exposes itself, she throws the man’s heart somewhere deep into the woods as if it were a Frisbee. Taking off again, she does what she can to keep her focus on her goal. Sooner or later, she will find the Bayou. She just as to make it that far without getting herself killed. Running at a speed that cannot be caught by the human eye, she pushes forward and shakes away her looming thoughts. She can feel the dementia tugging at her mind, begging it to slip into madness. She has to fight. The last thing she needs is for the venom to turn her into something identical to what is chasing her.

            Panting heavily now, she runs until she abruptly skids to a stop at the edge of a swamp. She must cross it to get to the other side and as she leaps into the air, something grabs a hold of her backpack, tearing it from her body. Tumbling into the muddy water, she fights off a muscular woman whose muscles bulge from her T-shirt. The woman laughs as she holds Elizabeth by the throat, plunging her head down beneath the cold water. Holding her breath, Elizabeth fights to reach upwards and she snaps the neck of her attacker. As she emerges, she hardly has time to recover. Another human Hybrid pounces on her, biting into the meat of her right bicep. Crying out, Elizabeth kicks as hard as she possibly can and sends the woman flying into the trunk of a tree, flinching when her spine snaps. She knows exactly how that feels.

            Quick to get out of the water, Elizabeth picks up the backpack by the handle and takes off in another sprint. She will have to avoid the swamp all together, it’s too much of a liability and the journals would never survive. With three bites now oozing, she does her best to keep moving. As she continues to burn more energy, she is given the toxins more of a chance to infect her. She only has three remaining choices now. She can find a place to hide, find a body to feed on, or keep going until she can no longer function. None of those options increase her rate of survival.

            “Fuck,” she mutters, shaking her head.

            Soon, the woods begin to melt into something that is strikingly more familiar. _The Bayou._ Her heart hammers weakly in her chest and sweat coats every inch of her body. She’s falling faster than she thought she would and she mentally curses Charles’ for making such a strong strain of werewolf venom. Almost as if they sensed her unwelcome presence, wolves emerge from the woods and Elizabeth skids to a stop as they cut off her path. Panting, she looks up at the sky. It’s a full moon tonight. Cursing, she raises both of her hands and waits for the alpha to emerge from his pack. Normally, wolves don’t have this much control over their minds when they’ve turned, but it seems some of the work Freya and Davina have been doing for them is helping. This pack is conscious and aware of the things around them, just like Klaus and Hayley.

            “My name is Elizabeth Walker. You know who I am,” she says loudly. “I mean your pack no harm, but the people who are following me will not hesitate to tear you apart to get to me. If you let me pass through, I will make sure you are rewarded.”

            The alpha draws closer to her, growling deeply as he bares his sharp teeth. Elizabeth holds her breath, unsure of what is going to do to her. A lot of damage was done to the communities in her absence, but she simply refuses to believe that the damage cannot be reversed when Hayley has been in charge of speaking for them. Exhaling slowly, she meets the eyes of the alpha and takes a half step forward.

            “You know the Mikaelsons will listen to me and I am friends with Hayley Marshall. If you let me through and kill those who follow me, I will personally see to it that the vampires of the French Quarter leave your people alone,” she barters. “I recognize your wolves. Your numbers have been low for decades. Help me to help you. I am good on my word.

            The surrounding wolves growl deeply and one even threatens to pounce, but she doesn’t flinch. She’s not entirely sure if she would have had the energy to do it anyways. The alpha seems to recognize the honesty in her voice and he nods his big head once, taking a step back from her. Elizabeth smiles with relief, dropping her hands to her sides.

            “Thank you,” she says. “If you wish to discuss further options for your pack, you will find me in the compound.”

            And before the human hybrids can catch up with her, she is gone in a blur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the past couple of uploads have been a little slow! I'm trying to get my schedule as clear as possible, but it's going to take some time. Thank you to everyone who is reading. You have no idea how much it means to me :)
> 
> ALSO, this is the halfway point of the story! Technically, the main plot and story ends on chapter 35. The chapters after 35 are glimpses of the past and future. The last five chapters will also include a preview into the next book and a final note from me. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	21. On Death's Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making it back to the compound, Elizabeth hardly has any life left in her and with Klaus missing on a rage induced bender, the Mikaelson's worry they may not be able to cure her bites in time.

With pale skin drenched in cold sweat and feed covered in dried blood, Elizabeth lays a hand on the front gate to the Abattoir.

            She pushes past it and stumbles forward, barely able to keep herself standing. Her heart is beating at an alarmingly slow rate, hardly going fast enough to keep her body from shutting down completely. Coughing violently, she whimpers as her lungs burn and almost rattle painfully. She wipes the splattered blood from her lips with the back of her hand, looking around the main floor in distress. She is seeing double, but it would appear that no one is here and not a single voice can be heard. Where have they all gone?

            “Klaus?” She croaks, feeling a heavy dizzy spell overcome her.

            Not a second later, a vampire appears in front of her but it’s not Klaus. Instead, it’s Elijah and he only narrowly manages to catch her before she crashes to the ground. Elizabeth clutches onto him, struggling to keep her head up. She feels as if the entire reality she has been living in is collapsing onto itself. She can hardly pick apart what’s real and what’s a memory. Her throat burns with a deep craving for blood and should a human get anywhere near her, she fears she won’t be able to stop herself from sinking her fangs into their jugular.

            “Elizabeth, you got out,” Elijah comments happily, though even he hates how obvious he sounds. “What’s wrong with you?”

            “Charles’ freak hybrids… got to me a few times,” she explains. She slowly peels back her drenched shirt to reveal the bite mark on her neck. “Are Hope and Hayley okay?”

            Elijah nods and pushes her sweaty hair from her face, trying to get a read on how far gone she is. “Yes. Marcel got them safely to Mystic Falls. Damon Salvatore met them halfway,” he confirms. “Elizabeth, I’m afraid we’re in quite the predicament. Niklaus took off about three hours ago. Nobody can find him.”

            Elizabeth inhales sharply, struggling to keep her fangs hidden away. “Well, then I suppose it’s time… to go to Mystic Falls, Elijah. Niklaus will break the curse,” she mumbles incoherently.

            Rising to his feet with Elizabeth held in his arms, Elijah speeds off to the study where Rebekah sits with Freya. The two of them are engaged heavily in a conversation when Elijah appears in the doorway and Rebekah gasps at the awful sight of Elizabeth.

            “Oh, my,” Freya sputters, getting to her feet. “What happened to her? Nathan was supposed to free her before she dies.”

            Elijah walks over to the large desk and he shoves everything from it, making room for Elizabeth as he sets her down. Carefully, he pulls the backpack away from her shoulder and he passes it to Rebekah. “She was bitten. Werewolf venom, I presume. She was looking for Niklaus when she got here.”

            Rebekah opens the backpack and peers inside to find the journals. She pulls one out and flips through the first page, skimming to figure out what they are. “She’s bloody brilliant. She got her hands on some of Charles’ journals.”

            “Never mind that right now, Rebekah,” Elijah sighs. “Freya, what can you do? Until Niklaus resurfaces, we have to keep her alive. He will be devastated if she dies now.”

            “I don’t understand,” Freya mutters. She carefully peels back Elizabeth’s shirt to expose the festering bite on her neck. The flesh is rotted, but it’s too soon for this to be happening. “Werewolf bites, even with the ones she has, take a few days to kill a vampire. This shouldn’t be happening as fast as it is.”

            Elizabeth opens her bloodshot eyes and points to the backpack full of journals. “From what I… gathered, Charles made a higher-potency strain of venom. He's been experimenting on werewolves for decades," she explains tiredly. "I'm sure it's somewhere in those books…"

            A sudden sharp pain forces Elizabeth to slam her fist against the desk, cracking the wood. She breathes heavily in and out through her mouth, trying to stave off unconsciousness. The fever makes it feel as if she is melting from the inside out. Every square inch of her body feels like it’s being torn apart and lit on fire. Having been bitten before, she knows what it feels like to nearly die from werewolf venom, but this is exceptionally worse. Writhing in pain, Elizabeth grasps Elijah’s hand. She needs to keep herself grounded before it gets any worse.

            “Freya, there must be something you can do for her,” Elijah pleads. “Niklaus… he won’t take her death light and I think it’s needless to say that I won’t either.”

            Shaking her head, Freya looks to her little brother with doubt on her face. “Without Klaus’ blood, there’s not much that I _can_ do. All I can do is make this easier on her.”

            Elijah makes a frustrated face, simply refusing that there is nothing that can be done for her. He won’t watch her die. Taking off his suit jacket, he rolls up the sleeves to his white dress shirt. “Then we keep pumping blood into her. It should slow the process,” he says. Biting into his wrist, he brings his blood to Elizabeth’s mouth and she latches on, feeding slowly. He knows to feed off of vampires is not her preferred choice for a meal, but he has to believe the blood of an Original can help. “Rebekah, I need blood bags,” he then tells his younger sister.

            Elizabeth pulls back from Elijah’s arm before too long, pushing it back although he insists that she keeps going. “I can’t, Elijah,” she whispers. “Don’t worry about me. Klaus is… sending m-me away again… I will return home in a… a couple of years.”

            Sighing, Elijah strokes Elizabeth’s hair. Seconds later, Rebekah returns with a bowl full of blood bags. She then sits on top of the desk, pulling Elizabeth against her until she is leaning against her chest. Carefully, she puts a blood bag against her lips until her instincts kick in and she latches onto it.

            “There you go, Elizabeth. Just keep drinking," she whispers. “Elijah, we have to find Nik. He cannot be far. I will not have her die in my arms.”

"Little sister, I believe our brother may be on some sort of betrayal fueled bender," Elijah replies irritably. "You saw how he was before he left. First Hope and Hayley are taken from us, then he finds out Elizabeth swapped them out for herself? He was livid."

            "You don't need to rehash it all to me, brother. I was there," Rebekah sighs. "Nik may be a fool, but he is not an idiot. Call Cami and see if he went for an emergency session with her."

            Elijah shakes his head. "Camille hasn't seen him, I already called. I fear our brother may be out to blow off some steam."

            Rebekah rolls her eyes, irritated with the situation at hand. "Well now is not the time for that, Elijah!" She snaps. "Find him before Elizabeth dies, will you? I refuse to believe my little sister is going to succumb to a few bites chock-full of venom!"

            Growing increasingly uncomfortable, Elizabeth pulls her lips from the blood bag and she cries out as her body begins to feel as if it is on fire. She digs her fingers into the desk, creating small dents in the wood. Freya takes a deep breath and holds her hands above Elizabeth's weak body as she begins to chant words in French. At first, she feels nothing, but then the pain begins to fade out and she sighs. Rebekah forcibly brings the blood bag to her lips again, only she cannot will herself to feed. Cursing, Rebekah angles her head upwards and she pours the blood into her mouth, hoping she has enough energy to swallow. Elizabeth tries hard, but all she manages to do is cough and spit it back out all over her shirt and legs.

            "Freya, I can't get her to feed anymore," Rebekah says impatiently.

            "It's the venom. Her body is shutting down rapidly," she explains. "We need Klaus. There's not much I can do to stop this. She'll be dead within the hour."

            Elizabeth takes a shallow deep breath, trying to regain some clarity in her blended mind. "Freya, in case... In case Klaus is not found... You should know what Lyanna and Charles are doing," she mumbles. Taking another deep breath, she focuses hard on her words. "They're... t-trying to raise Death."

            Freya's words stop for a brief moment, unsure if she heard Elizabeth correctly. "Did she just say they're trying to raise Death?"

            Rebekah nods and looks down at the girl who rests against her chest. "Let's hope that's the dementia talking. Is Death even real?"

            Elizabeth shakes her head, once again pointing to the backpacks of books. "It's in his journals. Lyanna... is hell-bent on raising him. She's mad at Klaus for destroying her first attempts… We’re-We’re immortal…"

            Freya shakes her head, unable to wrap her mind around the concept. Up until now, she never thought about Death being a real being. Rebekah looks to her older sister for answers, but even Freya has trouble thinking of where to start.

            "Is Death real? Can he be raised?" Rebekah asks. In all of her years alive, she has never heard of such a tale. To hear that a very powerful witch is trying to raise him from where ever he lies, sends chills down her spine.

            "I... I suppose he's as real as he wants himself to be. He was always a myth," she explains. "I never thought of Death as one being, but I suppose now... As soon as Elizabeth is healed, I'll look at the lore books. There must be something concrete on him."

            Rebekah looks down at Elizabeth and she pushes her hair from her face, frowning at how sickly and pale she is. The bites on her body are gruesome and infected, destroying her body with each passing second. She will not last much longer.

            “Come on, Nik…” Rebekah whispers.

            Only a rumbling of feet can be heard before the study doors burst open and in comes Klaus with Elijah directly behind him. Rebekah is disturbed by the amount of blood on Elijah’s clothes, but she says nothing. Elizabeth lies still across the desk only moments away from her death. Klaus runs to her and bites into his wrist, bringing the blood to her parted lips. She doesn’t latch on or seem to sense that help is near and Klaus’ heart skips a beat in panic. Is he too late?

            “Come on, sweetheart,” he begs quietly. “You need to drink from me. Let me heal you.”

            As the blood trickles down her throat, Elizabeth takes in a strong breath into her lungs. Weakly, she clasps her hand around Klaus’ and she holds his wrist against her mouth as her fangs sink into his flesh. Slowly, but surely, her wounds repair and start to close. Knowing she cannot have too much, she pulls away and lies flat on the desk as the color returns to her cheeks and the redness drains from her eyes. She takes steady breaths, remembering what it feels like to breathe. She had been so close to death she was unsure if she would live to see another day, but as she opens her eyes now and finds Klaus looking down on her, she cannot help but feel grateful.

            "There you are," she croaks, a soft smile spreading on her tired lips.    

            Klaus gently cups the side of her face, bending down to leave a gentle kiss on her forehead. "You didn't think I would leave you to die, did you?" He asks.

            "Wouldn't be the first time," she jokes darkly, recalling the many times he has nearly ended her life over the past five centuries. "Thank you."

            Klaus turns to his family and looks to them with remorse in his eyes. "If you will excuse me, I'm going to clean Elizabeth up," he says. "When we return, we will discuss our next move of attack."

            Turning back to the woman he so helplessly loves, Klaus picks Elizabeth up from the desk and holds her close to his chest. With a quickening pace, he walks to her room at the end of the hallway and skillfully opens her bedroom door. He kicks the door closed as he walks through, paying no mind to how loud it sounds in their silence. With great care, Klaus sits Elizabeth down on her closed toilet, leaving her to turn on the shower. Elizabeth watches him with much more alertness than she has had in the last four days. She feels genuinely alive and whole again. However, she can feel something in the air that makes her stomach flip over. He has hardly looked at her.

            "Klaus, I know you're upset with me-"

            "-Oh, upset doesn't even begin to cover it, darling," he cuts in as he walks back into the bathroom with fresh towels. "I believe I have absolutely peaked in my anger towards you."

            Elizabeth sighs and looks up at him, hoping she can get through to him. "I'm not sorry for what I did, Klaus. It was Hope and Hayley. There was no way I was going to let them stay there," she defends. "I had to do _something_."

            "Yes, so you thought it best to lie to me and go behind my back with the rest of our family. You chose to break your promise to me," he argues back. "You put yourself in harm’s way and nearly got yourself killed."

            "What was I supposed to do, Klaus? Hope is only thirteen. I wasn't about to let Charles lay a single finger on her," Elizabeth asks heatedly. “It was a difficult decision, but I did it for the life of your child and her mother. _Elijah’s_ girlfriend.”

            Frustrated, Klaus turns around to face her. His face shows nothing but controlled anger and she sees then just how upset he is with her. She has never seen him quite like this. She has betrayed him in the past for his own good and the wellbeing of others, but there’s something about the way that he’s looking at her now that makes her stomach twist into knots. He’s more than upset. He’s hurt. Klaus is not the kind of man who screams his emotions to the world so to seem him like this right now, it’s tearing her up on the inside. He’s trusting her with these emotions and it occurs to her that it is for that very reason that he is so angry. He trusted her.

            "You could have at least given me the chance to say my piece before going off on your own," he chastises. "Apparently, my opinion means nothing when it comes to your life. And I suppose I’m to be okay with that?"

            Realizing the weight of her mistake, Elizabeth shakes her head. "Klaus... I did what I did for Hope and Hayley. Yes, I almost died and I am sorry for that, but your family is safe now. That's all that should matter right now."

            "You're wrong, Elizabeth," he says in a low voice. "Although Hope is my daughter and Hayley _is_ her mother, they are not the only people in my life that I care deeply about. _You_ are my family and you are _not_ safe."

            Elizabeth sits in her place in deafening silence, unable to defend her case any further. She screwed up and she knows it, but she still cannot bring herself to regret what she did. She would do it a thousand times more if she had to. Nevertheless, she understands now just how important she is to the man who looks down on her now. He loves her and to ever think about letting her go is completely out of the question. Gathering that the argument is over, for the time being, Klaus gestures to the waiting shower that is now running with warm water.

            “Now, can you stand on your own or must I help you do that too?” He asks, agitated.

            Shaking her head, Elizabeth stands and starts to unbutton her blood-stained and torn white shirt. "I can manage just fine, thank you..." She says in a broken voice. She cannot bring herself to look at him.

            Without another word, Klaus leaves her to undress and clean up. Biting her bottom lip, she fights back her tears and peels the shirt from her body. Although her body carries no physical wounds, she knows she is flawed. Being back in the care of Charles did unspeakable things to her state of mind and now that she has time to think on it, it's eating her alive. Fighting back the wall of emotions that threatens to snap, she kicks off the rest of her clothes and opens the shower curtain to step under the pleasant warmth. As the water wets the blood that once clung to her skin, she watches as the water turns rose red and from her hair, she pulls clumps of mud and a few sticks from her tumbles. She even pulls out the splinters that stab into her palms, trying to make herself whole again.

            She doesn’t wish to spend a lot of time under the water as there are more pressing matters than the security of her own wellbeing, but she needs to take these next few minutes for herself. Who knows when she will get a chance like this again given what her future looks like? The rising of Death? What the hell does that even mean? Grabbing for her body wash, she pops the cap open and tips it upside down to pour an ample amount onto her waiting palm. However, a quick hand cuts her movements off. Jumping in shock and mild alarm, she spins around to find Klaus standing no more than an inch behind her bare body. She stares at him with her shocked, widened brown eyes, with her lips slightly parted. She is unable to think of anything remotely intelligent to say.

            “Allow me,” he offers, taking the body wash from her.

            Robotically, she turns back around and flinches when his gentle hands meet her soft skin. Thoroughly, he works the soap into her skin and washes away the blood and sweat, working to make her clean again. She focuses hard on his touch, admiring the amount of care he puts into his movements and touch. He doesn't move too fast or too slow, he moves at a pace that he knows she's comfortable with. Leaning back, she presses into his palms and although he cannot see it, she smiles.

            "I thought you would still be mad..." she comments shyly.

            "As cross as I may be, I do still have priorities," he responds simply. “I _do_ occasionally allow myself to care for things.”

            Elizabeth turns to face him, not caring if he is finished with her back or not. As her hair flattens under the water, she looks at him and marvels at how utterly perfect he is in her eyes. He is bare to her, not a single trace of clothing to be found. She watches him carefully as he resumes his washing at her shoulders. He carefully presses into her muscles, releasing the tension from her shoulders that scream with stress. From there, he washes over her breasts and her stomach, stopping at her hips. Their eyes meet and Elizabeth, as her heart beats unevenly, reaches out to pull Klaus into her arms. Together, they stand under the water as she holds him and allows herself to be held. For just a short while, they forget their stress and allow themselves to be in this moment together.

            “Death is not real,” Klaus spats. “He is a fairy tale that you tell to your children at night so they behave.”

            “Niklaus, I sincerely hope you told no such stories to Hope,” Elijah comments.

            Elizabeth looks between the brothers with her arms crossed over her chest. The two have been bickering for a seemingly unrealistic amount of time and although the topic has been brought up many times over by now, they have gotten nowhere.

            "Of course not," he replies back, almost completely offended. "I'm not a monster."

            "That's debatable," Rebekah adds on with an eye roll.

            Elizabeth shifts her gaze to Kol, who rubs his temples tiredly. Nobody has slept much lately, that much is clear. Clearing her throat, she gathers the attention of everyone in the room. Klaus, who had been mid-sentence in his own defense, draws his eyebrows together and looks over to the young vampire.

            “Look, we have no idea if Death is even real and _if_ he is, if he can even be raised from wherever the hell he is,” she says clearly. “If we are going to get ahead of this, then we need to know more about what it is exactly we’re getting into.”

            Freya runs a hand through her hair and she gestures to the clock on the wall. “Nobody is going to get any answers tonight,” she says. “I’m going to go home and sleep for a few hours. In the morning, I will track down Vincent and Cami and see what we can find on Death. If Lyanna believes he is real, then there must be lore on him somewhere.”

            Without another word on the subject, she leaves the living room at a swift pace. Slowly, the other Mikaelsons begin to peel away until it is just Elizabeth, Elijah, and Klaus. The three exchange silent looks, not really knowing what to say on the matter. Nobody thought they would be going up against Death any time soon.

            “Well, I suppose we have our work cut out for us,” Elijah says a little too calmly. “It would be best to rest up while we can. Charge our batteries, if you will.”

            Elizabeth smiles softly and rests a hand on his arm. “We’ll figure this out. I just hope it’s not as bad as I think it is.”

            “Elizabeth, if there is anything I have learned in my millennia of life…” Elijah says, “It’s going to be as bad as it seems if not worse.”

            Peeling away, Elijah leaves the room. Sighing, Elizabeth walks over to Klaus and even though he says no words to her, she can still feel his hurt. She will never be able to take back what she did, and she knows she was terribly wrong to do what she did, but she refuses to believe that this is the action that tears them apart. She has to make it right.

            “I want you to be angry with me,” she says abruptly. Klaus makes a confused face and opens his mouth to speak, but she cuts him off long before he can form his first word. “I want you to be angry with me because you need to be. I hurt you and I betrayed you,” she continues on. “I’m sorry for stabbing you in the back, but I can’t take what I did back. I saved Hope and Hayley and I will never regret that, but I regret what I did to you. You need to know I’m sorry. I won’t promise not to do it again, but I can promise I will never hurt you like this again.”

            As a wave of emotions discreetly washes over him, Klaus steps closer to her and he cups the side of her face. For a moment he stares into her eyes, reading the honesty in them. “Do not make promises you cannot keep,” he says quietly.

            Bending down to kiss her soft lips, he pulls her close and snakes an arm around her waist. However, he cuts the kiss short and steps back from her. Silently, he walks away and Elizabeth stands in the middle of the living room with a heavy weight pressing on her.


	22. The Mistakes we Make

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After finally uncovering Lyanna's true plans, Freya delivers some difficult news and Elizabeth struggles to accept it.

Freya walks into the room with a notebook held tightly in her hands, a look of worry on her tired face.

            Elizabeth lowers her glass down and looks to the eldest Mikaelson, her heart pausing only momentarily. She recognizes that look of particular dread and fear that she wears. “Did you and the others finally find something?” She asks warily.

            Freya pulls out one of the dining chairs and she smiles warmly at Elijah, completely ignoring Klaus who only laughs quietly at their aloof attitude towards him. "Yes. Vincent and I have spent weeks plowing over lore books and speaking to local witches," she explains. "Everything we have found on Death is horrific and disturbing."

            Getting the sense that she won’t have much of an appetite after this conversation, Elizabeth finishes her dinner and pushes her plate away to be picked up by the waiting staff. “I'll assume there's nothing about unicorns and kittens, then?” She asks.

            Freya opens and rests her notebook on the table and Elijah peers over it, looking at the scribbled notes and highlighted phrases. "Not unless unicorns and kittens have become the masters of bereavement and annihilation," she replies darkly. "Death has been around since the dawn of time. He had to exist in order for death to even be a thing."

            Klaus closes the book he had been reading and he rests it in front of his plate as he turns his attention over to his babbling sister. He has become quite interested in this topic of choice. "Please tell me you have new information written in that notebook of yours?" He asks sarcastically, a smirk on his face.

            Freya glowers at him and turns back to Elijah and Elizabeth, not in the mood to spar with her younger brother. "After the creation of vampires, Death had become enraged with the witches. He felt he had been cheated because vampires cannot die traditionally, especially the Originals. Death feeds on souls of the damned, he thrives on them," she explains.

            "Death was angry because he could not feed on the likes of us," Elijah assesses to which Elizabeth agrees with.

            "He wanted to put an end to all of the witches and although they had regretted the creation of such monsters – never mind the fact that it was our mother that did it – they ultimately had to defend themselves," Freya continues on. "They knew they couldn't kill him because, without Death, there is no end, but they knew that somehow, through a lot of magic, they could trap him. And they did. They trapped him in some tomb."

            Klaus folds his hands together on top of the table, curiosity glimmering in his blue eyes. "And I'm assuming because no magic is full proof, there is a way to get into the tomb?"

            Freya nods and points down to some scribbles in her notebook. "Yes. Every spell has a reversal. In this case, the tomb had many spells used on it before it could be locked because the witches feared his escape. For each spell you break, one lock opens," she says.

            "So how would people know of his existence if he has been locked away all this time?" Elijah asks. "I assume his tale has been passed around for many generations, but for someone to know his exact location and what it would take to set him free? Even during Lyanna's darkest period, five hundred years had already passed."

               Freya flips to the next page of her notebook and she skims the page, looking for the notes she needs. It's rather difficult to keep all of this information straight in her mind. "Death is not necessarily one person. He is this... plague-like force that can take the physical representation of a human. The spells put on the tomb were not perfect. He can still reach out to the weaker souls and poison them into doing his bidding. He has done it to many over the centuries. Lyanna for example or maybe even Charles. People who were poisoned were called _Diener des Todes._ Which means Servants of Death."

            "So, Lyanna became a Servant of Death because she was too dull and weak-minded?" Klaus muses with his ever-present smirk. "That says quite a lot about the Walker sisters, actually. One is a complete dimwit and the other is enchanted by the mere thought of darkness."

            Elizabeth sends a loathsome glace over to Klaus and, moving quickly, she stabs her fork into the back of his hand. Klaus hisses and jerks his hand back heatedly, ripping the silverware from it as he grabs for a napkin. Elizabeth shakes her head irritably and turns back to Freya, ignoring the way Klaus looks at her now. For as long as they have been in each other’s lives, she knows he’ll only be pissed with her for a few minutes before he lets it go. Clearing her throat awkwardly, Freya continues with her story. Elijah seems to be completely unphased by what happened.

            "When Lyanna was cursed by darkness, she gave her soul over to Death for him to feed on and in return, he gifted her with powerful magic and eternal life," she says. "When Klaus tore her heart out and killed her, she was put in this state of limbo, but it wasn't pleasant. Death would have been angry with her for failing. He most likely tortured her for a long time before giving her another shot to set him free."

Elizabeth begins to fidget with her rings as she thinks this over carefully and thoroughly. She is not sure how she feels about all of this quite yet, but at least it gives her something to jump off from. "So, theoretically, could Lyanna be saved? Is there a way to break her connection to Death?"

            Freya looks sadly at Elizabeth, unsure of how she should deliver her answer. She knew it would be asked of her and she spent many days looking for any possible solution. "Elizabeth, Lyanna's soul has been fed upon. No matter what we do, she will never be the same. The Lyanna you knew, your big sister... She's long gone."

            Nodding robotically, Elizabeth takes a deep breath and forces herself to move onto the next topic. She knew, deep down in a part of her that she doesn’t like to spend too much time exploring, that would be the inevitable case. Lyanna was never the same after their mother was killed and she knows now that was the night she truly lost her sister. In fact, that was the night she lost the last bit of light in her life before meeting Klaus. Her mother kept Lyanna stable and she always supported Elizabeth in her choice to not practice magic even though it had often enraged their father.

            "What would happen if Death is set free again?" She asks, keeping herself composed for the sake of the others.

            "Nobody knows for sure because it has never happened, but many believe he would rain hell upon the immortals and the witches. Some say he would feed on countless innocent souls in his anger," she replies stiffly. It is not a pleasant thought in her mind. "Should Death walk free, nobody, and I mean nobody, will stand a chance. We’d all be dead within weeks."

            Elijah leans back in his chair uncomfortably. The longer he thinks about Death and his existence, the warier and more nervous he becomes. "We all know what we have to do, then. Not only for our existence but for the wellbeing of the human race entirely," he says slowly. "So, I propose the question: How do we stop Death?"

            Freya seems relieved to be at this part of the conversation. Instead of talking about the rise of Death, she would much rather discuss how to stop him. Just the thought of watching the world be torn apart by an ancient entity terrifies her to her core. "It won't be easy, but I believe Vincent, Davina, and I have come up with a way to do it," she says confidently. "Obviously, Lyanna is a problem. In fact, she’s our only problem. She is extremely powerful and an extremely gifted witch. We cannot do _anything_ unless we get rid of her first. The only problem is one way or another, she will come back."

            Klaus laughs under his breath, finding humor in the question he is about to be asked because he knows it has been asked many times in regards to his own family. "And, my dear sister, how would you suggest killing something that cannot be killed?"

            "We can't kill her. Death will only bring her back if we do and we won’t know when she will rise again. So, the next phase of the plan would have to happen before then," Freya clarifies. "Once we handle Lyanna, we can spell the locks on Death's tomb again and anchor them to something that will never die. If we do that, the locks cannot be opened."

            Klaus rolls his eyes and moves to lean forward on the table, hoping to make himself clearer this time. "That's all fine and dandy, but you haven't answered my question, Freya. How do we kill something that will only come back to bite us in the ass later?"

            Annoyed, Freya presses her lips together in a thin line. "I was _getting_ there," she snaps. "There's no easy way to say this, but Davina, Kol, and I think we have come up with a good way to kill Lyanna, but keep her from going back to Death."

            In the pit of her stomach, Elizabeth begins to feel uneasy. She doesn’t like the tone Freya is using and the way she is beating around the bush is forcing her into believing what she’s about to hear will be upsetting. "What do we have to do?" She asks slowly.         

            Freya hesitates, lowering her eyes to the table. “Liz, I looked for anything that would be easier… and I… There’s only one way that we can stop her. We just don’t have the time to sit around and figure out another way,” she says, struggling for words.

            Elijah makes a saddened face as he slowly begins to understand what his sister is going to say. He then looks to Klaus, who’s amusement drains completely from his face as he too realizes the weight of the task that is about to be set before them. This all entirely rests upon Elizabeth and her strength. For as long as she has been alive, she has felt so much regret for what happened to Lyanna and it’s not going to get any easier. No, from this point on it will only be an inescapable tragedy that has been written into their lives from the day Elizabeth was born.

            “Davina and I went digging through all of the old artifacts Kol has been hoarding for as long as he has been alive and we found a collection of daggers from an old coven. One of the daggers from that set is powerful enough to kill a witch and trap their essence within its stone in the hilt,” Freya explains, glancing down frequently at her notes. “The only catch is it has to be done by a blood relative. Liz, it will have to be you who kills Lyanna and we only have one shot at it. This can only be done on the last new moon of the year.”

            All of Elizabeth’s thoughts come to a screeching halt. When she learned that her sister is still alive after thinking she was dead for centuries, she had forced herself to come to terms with the knowledge that she would eventually have to be stopped again. After everything she had been through recently, she never thought that it would have to be her hands to carry out the task. She hates how poetic it is. The poisoned and wicked older sister is to be put down by the pure, younger sister who has lived a life full of death and tragedy. Swimming through her crowded thoughts, she hadn’t realized she was being spoken to until Klaus rests his hand on her shoulder gently. Jumping, she looks back at him and shakes her head. She can’t even bring herself to speak. She needs… she needs space… she needs to get out of here for a while.

            “Elizabeth, I know it’s not ideal and I know being the one to kill your own sibling is difficult, but…” Freya attempts, failing.

            Pushing away from the table, Elizabeth gathers her things and starts to leave the room. She can’t function properly when everyone is waiting for her to finally snap. Do they expect her to throw her plate across the room? Are they waiting for her to flip the table and storm out of the room? She would never do those things… she could never… She can’t _breathe._

            “Elizabeth, wait,” Klaus calls, hoping she’ll stop.

            Without much thought, she takes off in a blur and starts searching for a place in which she can breathe. The last thing she wants to do right now is deal with the emotions that are clashing inside of her and although she has never hated being a vampire, she despises how heightened her emotions are because of it. It doesn’t take her long to reach the ever-busy sidewalks of New Orleans and she does her best to ignore the way people stare at her. People move around her as she shoves by them and before she realizes it, she’s standing at the front entrance of Rousseau’s. Blinking away her frustrated tears, she pulls the door open and walks right through. There’s a bumping atmosphere in here tonight and it puts her mind slightly at ease, numbing her festering pain. She can’t hear herself think in here… it’s almost a blessing. Walking up to the bar, she is pleased to see Cami cleaning a spot on the counter that had been covered in dried Salsa.

            “I thought you only work here on the weekends?” She asks with false cheerfulness.

            Cami looks up and right away she can see the conflict in Elizabeth’s troubled eyes, but she doesn’t bring it up right away. She knows better than to do that. So, instead, she gestures to the open bar stool in front of her as an invitation to Elizabeth. “I had an extra day off and thought I’d come into work for a few hours. Is there anything I can get you?”

            Nodding, Elizabeth points directly towards a bottle of bourbon. “I need something strong,” she says, clearing her throat awkwardly.

            Cami raises her eyebrows and grabs for the bottle and a glass. “Is there something bothering you?”

            Laughing nervously, Elizabeth rests her arms onto the counter and shakes her head irritably _. Bothering me… that’s a word for it,_ she thinks. “Just five minutes ago, I found out I will be the one who stops Lyanna for good. We don’t have time to find another solution if we’re going to seal the locks on Death’s tomb.”

            Cami slides her a glass full of more bourbon than she would typically serve to the old vampire and she stares at her with shock. After helping Freya with the lore, she figured it would go in a similar route, but it upsets her that it all landed like this. “You’re the one who has to kill Lyanna?” She asks, frowning. “Why should take fall on you? You’ve already been through enough.”

            “Somehow, I don’t think this life cares about what I have been through and what I haven’t been,” she says darkly, taking a long sip. “Freya, Davina, and Kol found a collection of old daggers. One of them will do the trick, but only a blood relative can use it on the last new moon of the year. As I am the most durable one and Lyanna’s last living family member who can do the job, I get to kill my older sister.”

            The bar attendee who sits right next to Elizabeth gives her a look of fear and confusion. He then hurriedly gathers his belongings and flees the bar immediately, leaving behind a few dollar bills on the countertop. Elizabeth watches him with distaste, feeling the old fire burn inside of that usually ignites when she begins to sway on her morals. She hasn’t felt like this for so long… She needs to stop it before it can turn into something more. Knocking back more bourbon, she proceeds to grab for his beer and downs what’s left of it one go. Cami watches her with concern. She knows Elizabeth is unhinged right now as anyone should be.

            “That’s awful,” Cami says. “I mean, I know your sister is a horrible woman, but… she’s your only sister. I don’t know what I would have done if it had to be who killed my brother.”

            Elizabeth nods her head and takes a considerably long sip from her glass. She doesn’t even react to the way the bourbon burns going down. “Yup,” she mutters dryly. “I know she deserves it and maybe it makes me selfish for never considering that I would have to be the one to do it in the end, but I…” she trails off, struggling to cram her thoughts into one sentence. Is it normal to feel like this? Shouldn’t she be stronger after all of the horrors she has endured in her life?

            “Well, is there anything I can do for you?” Cami asks, trying to see what she can do.

            Smiling, Elizabeth points to the bottle of bourbon. “You can leave that with me while you work. Feel free to put it on Klaus’ tab. I’m sure he won’t mind,” she suggests.

            Knowing that this is probably the last thing she should be doing when Elizabeth is like this, she goes against her better judgment and leaves the bottle in front of her. “Call me if you need anything else,” she says as she backs off.

            Elizabeth makes a sound of acknowledgment and grabs for the bottle, pouring herself another glass of it soon after. She drinks it quickly and it frustrates her that she still doesn’t feel anything from it. Cursing under her breath, she pours another glass and goes to town on the bottle. Cami watches her from across the bar for several hours, trying to be discreet with her concern. Elizabeth is incredibly drunk now and she will need to be heading home soon before she can start causing any more trouble. It’s bad enough she has drank through a large portion of the top-shelf liquors. Most of the people in the bar have started to wonder how she isn’t dead yet. Cami sighs and reaches into her back pocket, deciding to put her foot down. This isn’t healthy for her. Scrolling through her contacts, she finds Klaus’ name and she hopes he is nearby. She really doesn’t want to bring too many people into this.

 

> **To Klaus : **  
>  **Hey, I know you’re probably really busy, but**  
>  **I thought you should know Elizabeth is**  
>  **currently really drunk at the bar and should**  
>  **probably be taken home before she starts acting**  
>  **out. She seems determined to drink through my**  
>  **entire stock tonight. I’m already out of bourbon.**

It takes a few long minutes, but the hybrid does eventually respond to her text. Cami makes a quiet sound of relief. She won’t have to deal with a five-hundred year old drunk vampire after all.

 

> **From Klaus :**  
>  **I’ll come get her. Aren’t you supposed to put a**  
>  **limit on how much alcoholics can drink?**
> 
> **To Klaus :**  
>  **You really want me to try and stop your angry**  
>  **girlfriend from drinking? I don’t want to die,**  
>  **thank you. She’s your problem.**

            Within seconds, Klaus is walking through the door and it doesn’t take him to locate his brown-haired girl sitting at the counter with a glass held a little too tightly in her hand. He walks over to her, nodding at Cami in passing. Sneaking up right beside her, he takes the open spot beside Elizabeth and stares at her intently. Elizabeth looks over at him and smiles, a little too happy to see him. However, the troubled look on his face has her hiding her joy.

            “Uh oh,” she giggles, swaying a little. “Am I in trouble?”

            Klaus raises his eyebrows and gestures to the empty bottles around her. It surprises him to see how much she has drank. Any normal person would be in the hospital by now or dead. “I assume you’re not paying for all of this, are you?” He asks knowingly.

            Elizabeth shrugs her shoulders and finishes off the rest of her vodka. “Nope. I stuck it all on your tab,” she admits freely and she pays no mind to the eye roll she gets in response. She has always found him to be cute when he’s annoyed. Giggling a little, she slumps against him and pokes at his cheek.

            Klaus reaches for the glass in Elizabeth’s hand, but she doesn’t give it over like he thought she would. Sighing, he applies his strength and pries it from her hand instead. “I’m here to take you home, sweetheart,” he says seriously. “You’ve been here for too long.”

            Pouting, Elizabeth pushes herself away from him and reaches behind the bar for another glass. “I’m not causing any trouble, Klaus,” she argues lightly. “Can’t I stay for a little while longer? I promise to be good…”

            “Love, if you don’t stop, you will keep drinking until you’ve drank the entire bar,” he says and there’s nothing in his tone that would suggest he’s joking. “You’re scaring away Cami’s customers. It’s time to come home and go to bed.”

            When Elizabeth refuses to listen to him yet again, Klaus stands and uses his foot to swivel her stool around. She giggles at the movement and starts to sway again, hardly able to keep herself upright. Throwing her over his shoulder, Klaus walks promptly out of the bar and into the cool night air. He ignores the firsts that pound on his back and he most certainly ignores the angry threats she throws his way. The two of them have been insulting each other for centuries. Nothing she can say will make him change his mind and let her run off. Pushing past the gate of the compound, he marches right up the stairs and pauses by Elijah who seems mildly amused.

            "You found her," he comments. "Is she alright? I cannot imagine what must be going through her head right now. You seem to be the only one in this family who can kill their sibling without a care in the world."

Klaus ignores the jab and gestures to the girl on his shoulder. "She's drunk off her pretty little ass, but she will be alright," he explains and Elizabeth makes a sound of protest. "She is, however, quite cross with me for dragging out of the bar like a child."

            Elijah smiles slightly and gestures down the hallway towards the bedrooms. "Get her into bed, then. I have to call Hayley to inform her of the plan. I'm sure she will want to be aware of it."

            Walking promptly down the hall, Klaus opens her bedroom door and kicks it closed behind him. With a little more force than he intended to use, he flops her down on her bed and she groans as she bounces on her mattress. Moving slowly, she props herself up on her elbows and glares at him. She did _not_ want to come home, if she hadn’t made that abundantly clear enough already. Had he actually bothered to listen to her, she would have much preferred to stay at the bar where she could drink until she forgets her own name. It feels good to be like this. She doesn’t have to think about how fucked up her life is and she can admire how pretty her boyfriend is without feeling embarrassed… this is… good…

            "You get quite grumpy when you drink," Klaus points out as he lifts her left leg and starts to untie her shoe for her.

            "Yeah, well, not all of us are comfortable with sticking a dagger into their sibling's chest," she grumbles tiredly.

            Rolling his eyes, Klaus stares down at her. “This seems to be a reoccurring joke this evening,” he comments irritably.

            Elizabeth mocks his tone with her hand and a facial expression, moving to crawl away from him before he can get her other shoe off. Getting off of the bed on the other side, she stumbles her way to the bathroom and squints under the lights when she flicks them on. Klaus appears in the doorway and he watches her carefully as she pulls the clips out of her hair. Clumsily, she grabs her toothbrush and glares at him through the mirror.

            “I don’t need a baby sitter,” she complains with a mouth full of toothpaste.

            Klaus smiles and gestures to her unstable stature. “You really want me to leave you alone while you can hardly stand?”

            Elizabeth turns to face him and stumbles forward, all but falling into his arms with her toothbrush still held tightly in her hand and her right shoe still on her foot. “No, I want you to kiss me so I don’t have to think about killing my sister,” she slurs.

            A little too happily, Klaus plants a firm kiss against her forehead, to which she makes a sound of complaint. He draws back, with an eyebrow raised. She wants more than that.

            “That’s not what I meant,” she grumbles. “Can’t you just make me feel better? I want you…”

            “As tempted as I am to kiss away all of your problems, you are much too drunk,” he says firmly. “You need to sleep this off.”

            It takes several long minutes to get Elizabeth changed into her pajamas and it takes even longer to get her other shoe off, but with many complaints and lots of skill, Klaus does manage to get her into bed. He crawls in beside her and he pulls her into his arms, holding her securely. As he rubs her back, her shoulders begin to shake and he soon realizes she’s crying. Although he has never had an obvious problem with carrying out the act, he does understand how painful it is to go through with actually killing a sibling. He never wanted this kind of pain for her, but there’s nothing to be done about it. In just a couple of short months, Elizabeth will have to face one of the hardest challenges in her life and he intends to be there for her every step of the way.

            “Rest now, Elizabeth,” he says, kissing the top of her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is going to be a lot of Lyanna in the next few chapters and a lot of things are going to start happening. I'm reeeaaaallly excited to publish the rest of the story! :)
> 
> This chapter wasn't one of my favorite, but the next few are complicated and I think they make up for the lacking chapters I've uploaded so far. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	23. A Moment of Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Determined to prove that the Mikaelsons are not the fairy-tale family Elizabeth sees them as, she shows her little sister they worst things they have ever done to her behind her back.

Betrayal.

            It’s a curse that has plagued the Mikaelson family for as long as they have been alive. Even the birth of Klaus was an act of betrayal because he was not his father’s son. No, he belonged to another man and it was that devastating truth that pushed him to be a subject of abuse from Mikael. At one point or another, the Mikaelson’s have all done something to stab each other in the back. Pain surrounds the that family and Elizabeth, having spent the past five-hundred years with them, has felt that pain many times before. She has defended them and has taken sides when necessary and in her unbending loyalty, she put her life in their hands. She has trusted them time and time again and they have made it so far since 1515.

            Up until today, she never stopped to wonder if they have been completely honest with her. She has been honest with them, so why wouldn’t they be honest with her? Even if she had dwelled on it before, she never spent too much time thinking on it because to question their loyalty to her would be the same as questioning the bonds and relationships they have formed together. She never wanted to consider that maybe, somewhere in their long and tragic history, that they may have done something to her behind her back that would destroy her if she ever found out. But today changed all of that. She was _forced_ to think about it and she was _forced_ into living it. She knows now what kind of lies she has been told. Whether she likes it or not, she knows what has been done to her behind her back. Her trust has been betrayed… broken.

            This is what Lyanna wanted, of course. That was the whole point of what she did to them today. She wanted them to find their way to that old abandoned building and she wanted to force her way into their minds to show the proof that she needed to support her case. Ever since her death in 1524, she has wanted nothing more than to tear the Mikaelsons apart and make her sister realize what terrible people they truly are. That is, of course, when she is not focused on freeing Death from his tomb. And she succeeded today. She got what she wanted and Elizabeth… she’s struggling to be okay with it. How can she put the truth behind her and move forward? It’s eating her up on the inside to know how many times she has been stabbed in the back.

            The people she trusted the most, her brothers and the man she loves the most… They all did things to her they swore to never. And in a way, she wonders if she’s being a hypocrite. Can she be angry with them when she has so freely forgiven them for the wrongs they have done to others? Can she forgive one and not the others? The decision is pressing her down. She doesn’t want to make it but she knows she has to. There’s no time for a family dispute when her sister is trying so hard to free Death from his tomb so he can destroy them all. She can’t afford the loss and she can’t afford to ignore it either. Choking back her tears, she knows what she has to do. It’s time to handle this.

**_12 Hours Earlier_ **

            Elizabeth rests her head back on the old, dusty couch in annoyance. Today has not gone the way she had hoped it would. When she woke up this morning, she intended to go downstairs to eat her breakfast and afterward, she, Elijah, Klaus, and Kol were supposed to go procure an old lore book on Death’s ancient temples. Had that happened, she and the others could have answered some of their more prominent questions that have been building up lately. As her luck would have it, none of that happened. Instead, the four of them got themselves trapped in a room all the way across New Orleans which, of course, was Lyanna’s plan all along. The mastermind behind today’s adventure sits on the old wooden desk in front of them, smiling at how good the burning tension feels.

            “Lyanna, please,” Elizabeth sighs. “You obviously trapped us here for a reason. Can you just get on with it already?”

            Her sister smirks, thriving in the collective irritation that fills the room. “You’re right. I am here for a reason, but I’m not here for the reasons you think,” she says. “I want to show something to you, sister.”

Elizabeth picks her head up and stares blankly at Lyanna, watching Klaus fold his hands together out of the corner of her eye. “Does it involve dead babies?” She asks sarcastically.

            “You best watch your tone with me,” Lyanna sneers.

            “Sister, I don’t even listen to Klaus when he threatens me like that,” Elizabeth says, leaning forward. “Let’s get on with it. Contrary to popular belief, my life does not revolve around you.”

            “No, but it does seem to revolve around this godforsaken family of yours,” Lyanna says with disgust in her voice.

            Elizabeth glances at Klaus, looking for help in this situation. Only, he gives her none. His face is unusually blank right now and she doesn’t trust it for one second. Had they never learned how Lyanna is alive, she’s almost certain he would try to kill her right now. Sighing, she turns her attention back to her sister who resumes grilling her for her choice of a family.

"You think your family actually cares about you?" Lyanna asks with a laugh. "I'm here to prove a point, little sister. The very people you seem so hell-bent on calling your family are not as trustworthy and loyal as you believe them to be."

            "What the hell are you talking about?" Elizabeth demands, growing frustrated.

            "Allow me to show you,” Lyanna says, jumping down from the desk. “The people in this room have betrayed you in ways you can’t even imagine. They’ve been keeping things from you.”

            Klaus narrows his eyes as he realizes where Lyanna is going to go with this insane plan of hers. He gives Elizabeth a side glance, sensing the discomfort that is building up inside of her. This entire fight has been centered around Elizabeth and the person she is. It would only make the most sense for her sister to try and take away the one thing that has kept her going for half a millennium. Without her family, Elizabeth would be lost and Klaus has known that from the day he met her. She draws strength from them and she goes to them when she needs to be held back from the edge. To lose her entire family now would tear her apart.

            “Lyanna, I do suggest that you think carefully about what you are about to do,” Klaus warns darkly.

            “Is that a guilty conscience I hear?” Lyanna asks, folding her arms over her chest. “I have thought carefully about this, Niklaus. I have been thinking about it ever since we met you in that damned forest. Elizabeth deserves the truth and I think it’s due time she gets it.”

            “Brother, it would appear we have no choice. Although I am reluctant to agree with Lyanna, she does have a point. Elizabeth deserves the truth,” Elijah sighs.

            Lyanna smiles at her old love, tilting her head ever so slightly to the side. “Thank you, Elijah. It would appear we are more alike than you think.”

            “Trust me when I say I am only agreeing with you for the benefit of Elizabeth. There are too many secrets in this family and I cannot ask Elizabeth to trust me when I have broken her trust,” Elijah clarifies.

            Sneering, Lyanna looks between the faces that stare back at her and she hums lightly. “The three of you have some pretty nasty secrets that are dying to come out,” she muses darkly. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done. Who wants to go first?”

            When nobody volunteers, Elijah clears his throat and casually raises his hand. “I will. I have no secrets that I wish to keep from her. I am willing to take the consequences for my actions as they come.”

            Giggling, Lyanna puts a slight bounce in her step as she walks back to the desk where she perches herself once more. “Oh, my dear Elijah. I will admit that your secret is considerably better than your sibling’s, but I do wonder how she is going to react once she realizes you… Well, I better leave it for the viewing. Don’t want to give away too many spoilers.”

            With a snap of Lyanna’s fingers, Elizabeth and Elijah fall unconscious simultaneously. When they awaken, they are standing in the middle of a forest. Elizabeth whirls around, feet sinking deeply into the thick blanket of snow that surrounds them. She takes in a sharp inhale, trying to figure out where and when they are. Elijah, however, doesn’t move a muscle. He already knows what memory Lyanna plucked from his head and he watches Elizabeth carefully as he tries to silently predict how she’s going to react.

            “Where… are we?” Elizabeth asks, unable to figure it out on her own.

            "This would be 1960," Elijah answers. "We are just outside of Portland, Oregon."

            Elizabeth feels her stomach drop. "Why the hell are we back here?" She demands. "What did you do to me?"

            Elijah looks sadly to the ground. "Elizabeth... this was a difficult time in my relationship with Niklaus. That doesn't justify what I did."

            She goes to ask more questions but begins to hear footsteps, so she turns around to comfort them. A younger version of herself appears out of nowhere and she's covered in blood, breathing heavily, and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail to keep it all out of her face. She skids to a stop and drops down to her knees, furiously digging through the snow as she sobs. Her hands keep digging until she is well into the dirt and when she feels that her hole is deep enough, she sits back on her heels and reaches inside of her winter coat for an old dagger. She shoves it into the ground, pushing the dirt back over it along with the snow. The present Elizabeth watches herself, struggling to understand what's happening here.

            "Why don't I remember this?" She asks, afraid of the answer. "Why did I have that dagger? That went missing decades ago."

            "You don't remember this night because I compelled you to forget it," Elijah answers honestly.

            “You did _what_ to me?” She demands, eyes narrowing.

            Elijah pulls his hands from his pockets and he gestures to the younger version of herself, attempting to make his case now before the truth comes out. "As I said... my relationship with Niklaus was very delicate at the time. He was gaining traction on breaking the curse and he had hidden the rest of our family away from us. I was angry. I knew you weren't taking vervain at this time because you hadn't been able to find any for weeks. I used to that my advantage," he says. "I was left with very little choice, Elizabeth. I had to act and I know it was wrong of me."

            At the sound of another pair of feet emerging from seemingly nowhere, Elijah comes out of the tree line and he too is breathing heavily. The younger Elizabeth looks at the palm of her shaking hands, watching as the deep lacerations close and she continues to sob, hardly able to breathe through her anger.

            "Did you get it?" Elijah asks her, coming to her side.

            Elizabeth looks up at him with a fury in her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You knew he would be there!" She yells, getting to her feet.

            Elijah holds up his hand, caught off guard by her hostility. "You knew the risks when you agreed to help me. This is for his own good. If he doesn't have the weapon that we used in 1892, he cannot use it against us. I no longer trust him and I will not stop until our family is restored. I will continue to take away his toys until he has no options left."

            "Elijah, you weren't there. _I was_. He will never forgive me for going behind his back like this," she snaps. “But you don’t care, do you?”

            “Of course, I care, Elizabeth,” Elijah sighs. “I consider you to be my little sister. You know that. I am doing what I absolutely must to protect Rebekah and Kol. I’m sorry I have been putting you in the crossfire.”

            Elizabeth shakily climbs to her feet and she presses her bloody hand to her forehead as she clams herself. “You’ve been compelling me, Elijah. How can you be sorry? I never remember until I’m with you again and when I do, I feel sick to my stomach. You are _making_ me betray him.”

            “I am terribly sorry for the pain this has caused you. I will be setting you free now. This dispute I have with Niklaus should remain between him and I. I need to keep you safe,” Elijah says warily, reaching out to grab her shoulder.

            “Elijah, let me go. I am perfectly capable of keeping myself safe,” Elizabeth orders, trying to get her arm free.

            “I must be certain. You know I would never do this unless I had another choice,” he says. Quickly, he cups the side of her face and looks deeply into her tearful eyes. “You are going to forget that you have helped me, Elizabeth. You are going to walk out of this forest and you are going to run from Niklaus for your own safety. You will not return until I know it is safe. I won’t stand to have you killed and I will not allow my brother to destroy himself by doing so. You must keep yourself safe.”

            The present Elizabeth jerks back and she shakes her head, turning to her Elijah. “ _You_ are the reason why I ran for ten years? How many times did you compel me?”

            “Eight times,” Elijah admits freely. “I didn’t want to do it, Elizabeth, but there was no other choice. You were the only person who could get close enough to him to get what I needed. I am terribly sorry for what I did.

            Scoffing, Elizabeth takes a half step back. “And here I thought my memories were starting to fade out because of old age,” she mutters. “You cost me ten years of my life… You were the reason behind one of my biggest fights with him.” Elijah goes to explain more, but he is cut off by an irritated wave of her hand. “I want out of here, Lyanna!”

            As the memory fades out, Elijah and Elizabeth jolt awake. Lyanna looks excitedly between them, a smile on her red lips. She likes the furious look in her eyes and it excites her to think that she might actually get her way. One person can only handle so much betrayal.

            “Care to explain what terrible thing you did, my love?” Lyanna prompts.

            Elijah sighs, looking between his siblings. “In the 60s, I compelled Elizabeth multiple times to gain traction on my dispute with Niklaus. By the end of it, I compelled her to run until I knew it was safe for her to return. I am the reason why she left for ten years and I never told her the truth. All of this time, she has been blaming herself for something that was done by my hand.”

            Klaus can’t decide if he’s angry or relieved. He never wanted to believe that it was Elizabeth who was taking his possessions and hiding them around the world. “Well that certainly clears things up a bit,” he chimes, looking over at Elizabeth as she tries to keep her anger at bay.

            Lyanna grins and moves to cross her legs atop the desk, feeling proud of herself. “Just for the record, that was me. You looked good in 1960, Elijah,” she says. Then, she turns her attention onto Kol. “It’s your turn.”

            “Why do I have to go next?” Kol asks, crossing his arms. “I’ve managed to go this long without making Liz hate me. I’d rather not start now.”

            “Well lucky for you, I’m not going to give you a choice,” Lyanna snaps darkly and there’s something so dark in her eyes that makes Elizabeth’s stomach twist into knots. “Besides, I want Klaus to go last. He’s the true love of my baby sister, so it only seems fit that I save the best for last.”

            Before any more arguments can be made, Lyanna snaps her fingers to send Elizabeth right into Kol’s memories. When her eyes open again, it is with a violent gasp and she is caught off guard by where she finds herself. She recognizes this room… this house. This is where she grew up before it burned down many centuries ago. Looking around, she spots Kol standing across the room and his face is masked with a dread so deep that he looks like he’s in pain. He knows why they are here and he knows why Lyanna is forcing Elizabeth to be here with him. This is the worst thing he has ever done to her…

            “Why are we here?” She demands, her voice angry. “This isn’t my memory. You shouldn’t know about this place.”

            Kol drags his hand down his face as he starts to feel panic building inside of him. He can hardly think clearly enough to force a few words out. “Liz… I… I am so sorry,” he apologizes, stumbling over his words.

            Coming out of the hallway to their left, a woman enters the room as she slowly unwinds her hair from the knots and braids that she had pulled it all up in and the sight of her makes Elizabeth’s heart stutter. Her mother walks to the old dining table, the very same one they shared many meals together lifetimes ago, and she rests her hand upon it as she looks to the bright, flickering flames in the fireplace. Elizabeth’s eyes turn back to Kol and he looks back at her with tears falls down his cheeks. For as long as she can remember, Kol never regretted his actions, but it's clear that this is tormenting him in ways she never thought possible. She knows what night this, she recognizes the dress her mother wears. She knows this setting and she knows what happened on this night.

            “What did you do, Kol?” She asks, almost yelling. Tears begin to brim her eyes as she wrestles with the emotions that burn inside of her. She already knows the answer to her question, but she simply cannot bring herself to believe it. How can this be true?

            “I never wanted you to find out,” he says hurriedly. “You were never… You were never supposed to know. I’m so, so sorry, Liz. Please forgive me. There was no way I could have known. I’m so sorry.”

            As her hands begin to tremble at her sides, she flinches at the sound of a heavy fist pounding on the fragile front door. Her mother goes to answer it and standing out in the rain is Kol from many centuries ago. He seems angry and his hands are covered in dark blood, fresh from his previous victims. He’s unhinged tonight and there’s a pained look in his eyes, something that resembles regret.

            “Oh my,” Emilia exclaims. “Are you alright, sir? Are you injured?”

            “I could use some assistance, ma’am,” the younger Kol says, his eyes glistening. “Would you mind if I came in to get out of the rain for a short while?”

            “I’m not too sure that’s a good idea. My husband won’t be coming home until the morning,” Emilia declines, moving to close the door.

            Kol puts his bloodied hands on either side of the door-frame and he leans in as close as he can get without running into the force that keeps him locked out. Emilia stares back at him and she cannot move away. She’s perfectly held in his gaze.

            “I think it would be better for both of us if you let me in,” he encourages, compelling her.

            Emilia blinks, nodding her head stiffly. “You should come in, dear boy. You’ll catch your death out in this rain.”

            Kol smiles and Elizabeth steps out his way when he walks towards her to take a seat at the old dining table. She then looks at the present Kol, but her tears are streaming down her face and she cannot see him clearly. How could he do this to her?

            “Please tell you didn’t do it,” she begs, her voice shaking.

            Kol brings a hand to his hair, his expression full of distress. He can hardly look at the memory version of himself. "I-I wasn't in my right mind... I didn't want to."

            After having left for a brief moment, Emilia comes back with a bowl of soup and a spoon and she leaves it in front of Kol, who looks at it with distaste. It is then that Elizabeth sees the confliction buried in his eyes and the tears that threaten to fall from them. It’s clear that he’s angry, but she has no idea why or what could have made him do what she knows is coming. This was six years before she met Klaus. She had no idea who Kol was at this time.

            "I don't mean to pry, but why were you caught out in the storm?" Emilia asks, her need to take care of the stranger growing stronger by the minute.

            The conflicted Kol pushes the bowl of soup away and he folds his hands together in his lap, listening closing to the heart that pumps blood throughout her body. "I made a mistake and I'm afraid I will never stop running because of it."

            "Have you done something terrible?" She asks, almost afraid.

            Kol nods his head slowly, looking at her with hollow eyes. The pain that he feels is bubbling and he slowly stands, walking closer to Emilia. "Yes… I betrayed my family… and I am afraid I may do something terrible again. I cannot stop myself."

            "You can," Emilia says kindly. "You can learn to control yourself. I’ve met many who did.”

            Kol tilts his head to the side, picking up on something within her words that he hadn’t noticed before. “You know what I am and what I’ve done? You know what kind of a monster I was turned into?”

            “I do. My husband is a witch,” she says honestly. “I know well of your kind.”

            “Then you will understand why I have to kill you…” he says, trailing off slowly.

            Elizabeth brings a hand to her mouth as she feels a sob trying to break its way free. She turns back to the Kol that she knows and shakes her head, unable to let go of the anger that she feels. "How could you do this?" She asks, trying to understand.

            When he doesn’t respond to her, she turns back to the memory and watches as he moves her mother’s hair away from her neck. She stands still and shows no fear. Emilia knows that her death is imminent now and yet, she doesn’t try to run away from him. Elizabeth realizes now that she got her strength from her mother… she’s the real reason why she never felt scared around Klaus. Bravely, Emilia grabs Kol’s wrist and looks into his tortured eyes.

            “Your family will forgive you,” she says, trying to make him see reason. “You don’t have to kill me, sir. You can walk away. Let me help you.”

            “But I do,” he argues tiredly. “I don’t want to kill you, but I need to… I’m weak… and-and your heart is beating so loudly…”

            Emilia grabs his other wrist and she shakes her head, struggling to fight her way through this. “Please,” she begs. “You don’t understand what you will be doing if you kill me. I need to stay alive.”

            “I’m sorry,” Kol says.

            Without saying another word to her, he moves in a quick blur to sink his fangs into her neck. Emilia’s screams fill the room until they fade out as her life is drained from her. The sound of two sets of feet running through the small house can be heard against the hard floor and Elizabeth watches in horror as Emilia’s two daughters burst in from the darkened hallway. Kol drops Emilia’s body to the floor and he turns to the young girls with blood dripping down his chin. The eldest daughter gasps and grabs for her little sister, forcing her back.

            “Go hide, Elizabeth,” Lyanna demands.

            The twelve-year old Elizabeth runs past her older self to hide behind the armchair, never looking at her dead mother or the monster that killed her. The younger Kol wipes the blood from his chin and as he realizes what he has done, a wave of heavy guilt slams into him. He doesn’t run out of the house when Lyanna goes for the wooden stakes their father kept by the fireplace and he doesn’t try to move when she plunges one into his chest. Dying, Kol drops to the floor and Lyanna sobs, rushing to her mother.

            “It was you,” Elizabeth breathes, staring emotionlessly at her sister as more tears roll down her face. Her face is completely blank and she feels empty on the inside, like a blindfold has been removed from her eyes and she is seeing clearly for the first time in her entire life. It was Kol’s tortured eyes that she remembers seeing that night. It was he who killed her mother and it’s making her head spin. Why did he never tell her? Why did he keep it a secret for this long?

            “Liz, please. Let me explain,” Kol says desperately. He has never begged for much in his life, but he cannot afford to lose her to this awful discovery. He reaches out to her, wanting to make it better, but she smacks his hand away powerfully and turns to him with a burning rage in her beautiful eyes.

            “You knew all along,” she spats. “You knew you killed my mother and you never told me. How could you lie to me? She was the only person in my life who hadn’t been touched by darkness and you took her away from me.”

            “Please, Liz,” Kol begs. “I-I’ve had my share of karma. I’ve lost my own life, I've been stuck in boxes, burnt alive... I know that’s no excuse, but I’ve suffered. Your mother didn’t die without vengeance. Please don't turn your back on me. This is what Lyanna wants.”

            His entire brain feels like it’s frozen, like it has been dipped into a bucket full of ice water. “You were the one who killed my mother,” she says in a quiet voice and it sounds much more like a train a thought as opposed to a statement. Turning away from him, she wipes her tears away and chokes back her burning anger. "I don’t want to be here, Lyanna," she says loudly.

            Suddenly, the room fades away and Elizabeth jerks awake back into the room Lyanna has been holding them in since she trapped them. She looks around and when her eyes settle on Kol, she feels conflicted. Should she be angry? Should she hate him for never telling her? Lyanna smiles proudly and points to the pair with an excited laugh.

            “Well, go on then,” she encourages. “Why don’t we share with the class?”

            Elizabeth shakes her head, unable to look at Kol for a second longer. “He was the vampire who killed my mother when I was twelve. He knew all along and never told me.”

            Elijah looks to his younger brother and frowns, having long suspected it for centuries now. Kol says nothing in his defense, knowing nothing he can say will make the situation better. She needs time to think it over and he’s willing to give it to her because after what he has done, he owes it to her. Lyanna hums lightly and pushes away from the desk she was leaning on, looking between the rest of the faces in the room.

            “Why are you making me go through this?” Elizabeth asks angrily.

            “I’m doing you a favor, little sister,” Lyanna reminds her. “For centuries you have trusted these people with your life and yet they have done nothing but hurt you.”

            “If you want me to see them as liars, then fine. You’ve won. Kol killed our mother and he never told me. Elijah promised to never compel me and he did. What else do you want?”

            Lyanna smiles, a condescending glimmer in her eyes. “Because while Kol and Elijah may be liars, I want you to see Klaus for what he really is. A monster.”

            Klaus scoffs and leans forward on the couch, staring directly at Lyanna with no fear. “Well, I’m afraid Elizabeth is already two steps ahead of you. She knows what kind of a monster I am. Your words mean nothing.”

            “Niklaus, I know you’re trying to distract me. You can’t run from this. It’s time my baby sister learns what you know,” Lyanna says. And with the snap of her fingers ringing out in the room, Elizabeth and Klaus slump together.

            She feels disoriented when she awakens at first, as if she had been asleep for a hundred years. Wearily, she picks herself up from the floor and she puts her hand to her forehead as she sways from side to side. There is something wrong with the atmosphere here, like all of the color in life has been sucked out from it. Blinking, she finds Klaus standing near her and he seems on edge. She doesn’t recognize where they are exactly, but she knows when this is. She has felt this feeling before.

            “We are in 1892,” Klaus says. "Far outside of Mystic Falls.”

            “Why the hell are we back here?” She asks, almost afraid to hear his answer. “This was… Klaus this was during–”

            “–I’m quite aware of when this was, Elizabeth,” he cuts in curtly. “This was near the end of our fight with Thomas, just days before I killed him.”

            “Exactly, so what the hell did you do to betray me?” She asks, growing fearful.

            “It’s… a complicated story, love,” he deflects.

            Coming in through the only door of the room, a younger Klaus storms through and it's obvious he's upset. Actually, that would be putting it lightly. He's absolutely livid. In one heave, the small dining table is being flipped and thrown across the room. Elizabeth jumps a little, trying to understand what is causing his temper to outburst like this. Then, another man walks into the room and she takes a sharp inhale. His green eyes dance all over the room and he smiles darkly at Klaus, appreciating his temper.

            "Niklaus," he greets. "How lovely it is to see you here."

            Klaus turns to the man and scowls. "Thomas. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

            "You know what I want. I want the girl. The one with the pretty brown eyes and the beautiful hair," Thomas says, smiling.

            Klaus squares right up to Thomas, only taking him in height by an inch. "You will _never_ lay a single finger upon her. Do I make myself quite clear?"

            A darkness flickers in Thomas' eyes and he lightly pushes Klaus back, looking to get some distance in-between them. "She has a power inside of her, Niklaus. I am quite positive you felt it within her the day you found her. That power intrigues me."

            "Elizabeth Walker will not be given to you," Klaus says again, louder this time. "She is under _my_ protection and if you dare go for her, if you _dare_ to look in her direction, I will tear you apart limb from limb."

            Unfazed by Klaus' threats, Thomas rolls his eyes. With a wave of his finger, six other faces join them in the room. Elizabeth feels her heart skip a beat. She knows these people and up until now, she had no idea what happened to them. She brings a hand up to her mouth in reaction, feeling her heart sink low in her chest. Klaus watches her, his guilt catching up to him. Out of all of the things he has done in his life, this is one of the worst. He was cold this night and he didn't care about the life of others so long as it meant he got to keep her.

            "These are the last remaining members of her family, yes? A powerful coven," Thomas says, gently stroking the face of the eldest woman who is six months along in her pregnancy. "I've always appreciated the Walker Witches. I'm willing to let them live, but whether or not I do is entirely up to you."

            The younger Klaus looks at the faces of the Walker coven, keeping his face perfectly composed as if the sight of them doesn't bother him at all. "You really think I care about a bunch of people I never met before?" He asks heartlessly.

            Thomas makes a brief face of surprise, smiling almost. "You would rather have me kill her remaining family than give me her yourself? How do you think she will react once she finds out it was you who got her coven slaughtered? Do you not care about her legacy?"

            "What I don't care about is what you want and what you're willing to do to get it. I am an Original and I do not take orders from you. Elizabeth Walker is mine and she will always be mine," Klaus says strongly.

            Elizabeth looks to the man she loves, feeling betrayed. "You let him kill my family because you were too selfish to let him have his way with me..." she whispers, tears welling up in her eyes. "I swore to protect them, Klaus. I gave them my word and I have blamed myself for their deaths. But it was you who got them killed?"

            Klaus looks defeated, his eyes so full of guilt that it's difficult for her to look at. "I was... You know how I was back then. It was a mistake to allow him to kill them, but I was... I didn't have compassion or love inside of me. Yes, I was selfish. I never should have made that decision, but to give you up to a man like Thomas... I could never. He would have used you. He would have taken away everything you are. I wasn't about to let him do that to you."

            "So, you let him slaughter my family?" She asks, angry. She can hardly think and when she hears the necks of the family being snapped, she drops down to her knees in anguish. "Lyanna! Get me out of here!"

            When she awakens in the real world, she throws herself from the couch and brings a hand to her hair as she tries to keep herself calm. She’s crying and everything in her head is clashing together. Furiously, she turns to Klaus and lets it unleash. She has been calm for way too long.

            “How could you?” She yells.

            “Elizabeth, I know you’re upset. You know how Thomas was. He would have killed them regardless of what I did,” Klaus tries to defend, failing.

            “They were all I had left! It was bad enough to learn that it was Kol who killed my mother, but to know that it was _you_ who got my family killed?” She yells, the blood rushing to her eyes. “Jesus Christ… Of course, you did. You’ve never cared about anyone but yourself.”

            Klaus goes to try and calm her down, but she shakes her head, backing out of the room as she is free to do so now. Lyanna watches from the desk, a wonderful grin on her face.

            “I see my work here is done,” she says, laughing. And before Klaus can try and rip her throat out, she’s gone.

            Fuming, Klaus stands from the tattered couch and goes to follow Elizabeth, but Elijah blurs in front of him, blocking the exit.

            “Elijah, I _will_ go through you if you do not let me go,” Klaus threatens.

            “Elizabeth needs space right now, brother. She has learned a great deal about us today. Although our betrayals are old, she is still hurt by them,” Elijah says seriously. “I compelled her even though I swore I never would, our brother was the vampire who killed her mother when she was twelve, and it was you who destroyed the last of the Walkers. Allow her some time to calm herself.”

            Kol pushes away from the wall he had been leaning against, the weight of guilt still heavily pressing on his shoulders. “We need her, brother. She’s the only one who can carry out the plan. The last thing we need right now is her running off right when we need her the most.”

            Elijah nods, understanding his brother’s concerns. “I believe Elizabeth is stronger than what you two give her credit for. She has been through much. Whether or not she forgives us for our indiscretions is entirely up to her, but she would never abandon her responsibilities. Give her the space that she needs and she will come around.”

            “How can you be so sure?” Kol asks, looking to the ground.

            “I’m not,” Elijah says simply. “But we all know what she is capable of.”

            Klaus takes a step back and exhales slowly, letting go of his anger. Elijah is right. Today, Elizabeth has been harmed in ways he had hoped she never would. They all promised to never hurt her, no never break her trust… and they have. He cannot force her to forgive him and he cannot force her to feel better about what she has learned. She will need time and they all owe it to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really fun for me to write. I had the idea that it was Kol who killed her mother early on, but I wasn't sure of how to introduce it, so I thought this was the best way. There was also a lot of secrets hidden in this chapter that will lead into the sequel :) 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	24. A Witch of Many Talents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Struggling to cope with the secrets she now knows, Elizabeth decides to hear the explanations behind them. Later, a surprising turn of events changes the lives of two loved ones.

How to repair broken trust?

            She has no idea. Every time she looks at them, she feels a rock drop into her stomach. It’s not like she wants to be upset, but she also can’t help it. Elijah once used her as a pawn, Kol was the vampire who killed her mother, and it was Klaus who got the rest of her family slaughtered. It hurts her so badly because for as long as she has been with them, she has done everything in her power to never betray them unless it was absolutely necessary. And she supposes that’s where they differ. They all had a choice. Kol could have told her a countless number of times, Elijah could have found a different way to get what he wanted, and Klaus could have done the right thing. She’s not mad at them for the things they did per se. Instead, she’s angry because of the lies. She should have been told and maybe things would have played out much differently if she had just known.

            “I don’t want to be like this,” she sighs, rubbing her forehead tiredly.

            Cami crosses her legs and runs her fingers over Elizabeth’s soft comforter, feeling the soft texture against her skin. “No one blames you, Liz. I think everyone is just worried. You’ve been trapped in here for days.”

            Dropping her hand, Elizabeth lifts her head and takes a deep breath. “I just don’t know what to do. The things they did were so long ago, but… Cami, I blamed myself for so long over the death of my family. I swore to protect them and the next thing I knew, they were dead. And Elijah? I put so much faith in them to not use me and he did. He _used_ me. Don’t even get me started on Kol. I understand he was afraid, but he has had hundreds of opportunities to tell me,” she vents, expressing how she feels. “How do I move on from that? I love Klaus more than anything and every time I look at him, I get so upset.”

            Cami nods, understanding where she’s coming from. “You’re not going to get over it for a long time and, honestly, you may never. You need time and maybe talking to them won’t be such a bad idea. I’ve been talking to Klaus and he knows he hurt you. He’s been looking for anything to make it up to you. Maybe if you gave them a chance to explain themselves, you’ll feel a little better. I’m not saying it’s a cure-all, but it might put you at ease.”

            Elizabeth sighs, raking a hand through her hair. “This is what Lyanna wanted. She wants me to hate them for what they did to me and I… I can’t. That’s the part that’s killing me. I can’t hate them and I don’t want to. I love them too much.”

            “Do what you think you need to do,” Cami encourages. “Unfortunately, I have to get to work. You can call or text me if you need anything, okay?”

            Elizabeth nods and in a blur, Cami is gone. She flops back against her pillows and shakes her head, trying to keep her head above the water. She doesn’t want to feel like this and that’s what it all comes back around to. Cami was right. Peeling herself from her bed, she walks out of her bedroom and listens for the voice she wants to talk to first. She hears him in the living room and that’s exactly where she speeds off to. Coming to the entrance, Kol’s eyes immediately land on hers and his conversation with Elijah comes to a deafening halt. Both of them look at her, both of them trying to decide what they should do. She walks to the couches they sit on and plops down right beside Kol, looking at him expectantly.

            “I want to hear it from your perspective,” she tells him. “Tell me your version of the story.”

            Kol anxiously looks to Elijah, who remains painfully silent on the couch in front of theirs. Seeing that he’s going to get no help, he clears his throat. “In 1509, I was having a really bad night. I was angry and I hardly remember what made me that way, but I did something I couldn’t take back that night,” he begins, not really looking at her. “I found this tiny house on a farm and I compelled a woman to invite me in. She knew what I was and she tried feeding me, but I was so angry. When she asked me what was bothering me, I snapped. I lost control and I fed on her. I didn’t know what I had done until her two daughters ran into the room and saw me drinking the blood of their mother.”

            Elizabeth listens to the story, seeing the memory in her head. It still causes her so much pain to think back to that night and now that she knows what actually happens, it hurts that much more. She keeps herself calm and allows him to continue.

            “The eldest sister staked me, I let her do it… I was ashamed that I took their mother. And-And when I came back, I heard that it was me that killed Emilia Walker, mother of Lyanna and Elizabeth Walker… wife to William,” he finishes. “I ran off after that and never looked back. Only, several years later, I came back to my family to hear that Nik and Elijah had taken in an Elizabeth Walker and when I saw your face, I knew it was you. The little girl from that night.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me?” Elizabeth asks, her voice small.

            “Because I…” Kol attempts, struggling. “I didn’t know how to. How do you tell someone that you killed their mother when they were a child? By the time I worked up the courage to, I had gotten to know who you were and although you were a human at the time, you had become one of my greatest friends. I didn’t see you as a meal or as a toy. You had become my sister and I knew that if I told you, it would ruin our relationship. I was terrified.”

            It’s hard for her to hear, but she understands. She has spent days in her room trying to come up with all possible solutions and out of all of them, that was always the one she could wrap her head around. She could easily put herself in Kol’s shoes and it’s for that reason she can forgive him the easiest. It’s no secret what kind of monsters they are. Sometimes the urge to kill is so strong and it’s not always possible to resist. Many times before has she been so emotionally destroyed that she couldn’t control her actions and although she wishes she knew sooner – although she wishes it was never a secret – she’s going to try to move on from it. Leaning forward, she pulls Kol into her arms and hugs him tightly. He doesn’t move at first, caught off guard by her gesture, but then he’s hugging her back and sighing with relief.

            “I’m still upset and it’s going to be a while before I forgive you completely, but I don’t want to be angry. You’re my brother,” she says.

            “Thank you, Liz…”

            After a short while, she draws back and turns her attention on Elijah. He nods his head once, scooting to the edge of the couch so he can sit up straight. Out of all three of them, Kol was the easiest for her to talk to. She’s not entirely sure how she’s going to handle hearing Elijah’s story and she doesn’t even want to think about Klaus yet, but she has to try. She already lost her family once and she’s not going to go through it again just because her sister wants to tear them apart. They’ve been through too much for that.

            “Elizabeth, you know I value you and see you as my sibling. It was never my intention to hurt you like that after I swore to protect you, but I also wasn’t thinking straight. I needed to know where Niklaus had stored Kol and Rebekah,” he explains. “I didn’t care how I got that information so long as I got and in retrospect, I see nothing I did worked because he didn’t return them to me until the curse was broken. I am terribly sorry for the pain I caused you. Nothing I can say will justify it or make it right. If you need to be angry with me, then I am okay with that. However, you need to know that I will never use you like that again. I learned my lesson.”

            Elizabeth takes in everything he is saying, listening to him very carefully. She knew Elijah would never beg for her forgiveness because he knows what he did is wrong and he believes he should be punished for it. “Thank you,” she says after a while. “I um… I know what you were going through then, Elijah. I wanted them back just as badly as you did and it kills me you had to go as far as you did. I’m going to need some time to trust your word again.”

            Elijah nods, having expected nothing less. “If you wish to speak to Niklaus, you may find him in his studio. He’s been there for the majority of the afternoon.”

            Silently, Elizabeth rises from the couch and she leaves the living room without ever looking back at them. Coming down the hall, she is faced with the doors to Klaus’ studio. She can hear him in there and with her hand on the door handle, she has to will herself to walk through the doors. He has his back to her across the room, reading something in an old book. She closes the door behind her and cross over to him, waiting patiently for him to acknowledge her.

            “You saved me for last,” he says, snapping the book closed as he turns to her.

            Elizabeth looks into his eyes and feels the uncomfortable knot twisting in her stomach. “Why must you eavesdrop on every conversation I have?” She asks, irritated.

            “To be fair, love, it has been days since I heard your voice. As soon as I heard it, it was all I could hear,” he justifies, setting the book down on his desk. “I assume you’ve come for my explanation?”

            “Actually, I need to tell you something before I hear what you have to say,” she clarifies. Taking a deep breath, she prepares herself for the wound she is about to open. “You knew how hard I tried to protect my family from Thomas. You saw how much I put on the line and you knew what it meant to me. They were the only blood family I had left and even though you knew what it was going to do to me, you let him kill them and take their power because you were selfish. You didn’t want to give me to him. You have caused me a lot of harm, Klaus, but nothing hurts more than learning it was your fault. After I discovered their bodies… That was the closest I had _ever_ been to flipping my switch. The guilt ate me alive. Do you understand what you put me through?”

            Klaus listens to her and in her words, he feels his guilt again. He remembers how upset she was and for how long she cried. After all, he was the one who held her and wiped her tears away. He remembers watching her bury their bodies one by one and he remembers just how silent she was after that night. It took her years to be normal again. “I understand, Elizabeth. I hurt you and I allowed your family to be slaughtered. I was careless and I was selfish. I didn’t care what happened to them so long as I got to keep you. To me, you were worth a million of them. You still are. I would give up anything within reason to keep you alive. Thomas wanted you and I wasn’t going to allow that. You were and are mine,” he says.

            Sighing shakily, she takes a step back. She knew this was going to be hard. “You know what I would have wanted.”

            “Yes, I did. I knew you would have preferred to hand yourself over, but you seem to be ignoring what kind of man Thomas was. He would have killed your family regardless of whether or not I let him have you. There was no sense in me losing you for no reason. So, I acted selfishly. I won’t say that I regret it because here you stand before me today. You can hate me and you can wish things had gone differently, but the fact stands. I will _never_ give you up.”

            Tears are welling up in her eyes now. She hates that Lyanna did this. Things would be so much simpler if she never knew. “Do you know why I am so torn up about this?” She asks, her voice fragile.

            “Tell me,” he encourages.

            “Because in the time I have known you, I have fallen in love with you. I fell in love with you centuries ago, Klaus. I loved you through _everything_ you have done and sometimes I hated myself for it. And right now? I can’t even look at you without feeling my heart break. I don’t _want_ to feel like this. I love you too much. But I can’t ignore it. You’re a selfish and _horrible_ person and I… I-I can’t leave you. I don’t _want_ to. I need you and that’s what’s killing me. I need you more than you know and it’s... It's  _your_ fault that I have no one left in my family. It’s your fault Nathan is dead, it’s your fault I will never have children… I-I hate you for it and I can’t… _Jesus Christ_ …” she explodes, letting go of years’ worth of aggression.

            She turns away from him, her knees feeling weak. Slowly, she eases herself down on his ottoman and lets herself cry, her head dropping into her hands. She wants it to stop. Things were never supposed to be like this between them. Time and time again, they have found each other through their hurt but she’s so blinded right now that she can’t see where the end is. It takes him a long while, but Klaus does eventually move. He walks around to her front again and he drops down to his knee, gently reaching out to touch her shoulder. She stiffens at his touch and looks up at him, her face wet with tears. He can see the hurt inside of her and it makes his heart ache. For the first time in centuries, he is seeing the damage he has caused her.

            “You are one of the strongest people I know, Elizabeth. You have suffered through a lot of pain in your life, much caused by my own hand. I used to wonder why a beautiful creature like you chose to love someone like me and then it occurred to me it wasn’t a choice just as much as it hadn’t been a choice for me to fall in love with you,” he says, moving his hand to cup the side of her face. “We don’t get to choose who we fall in love with. You are angry with me for the things I have done and that’s how it should be. I let Thomas kill your family, yes. It is my fault you are a vampire, yes. I was too careless with Nathan’s life… yes. For the most part, I cannot take any of that back. I’m not going to ask you to forgive me, Elizabeth, but I am going to ask you to let me help you.”

            Breaking down, she falls forward and crashes into his waiting arms. She feels so betrayed and confused, but she knows what she needs in spite of what he has done to her. She needs his comfort. Maybe that makes her crazy or broken. Maybe everything everyone has ever said about her is right. Still, she clutches onto him and cries through her pain. At the entrance of the studio, someone clears their throat and Elizabeth looks up to find that it’s Freya. She smiles sympathetically and Klaus is about to go off on her for ruining a moment, but she holds up her hand to stop him.

            “I’m sorry for barging in,” she says. “Klaus, you wanted me to tell you when it’s time.”

            Sighing, Klaus nods and stands to his feet. “You always did have impeccable timing, sister,” he muses.

            Sniffling, Elizabeth wipes her tears away and stands from the ottoman. “Time for what?”

            “We have a surprise for you, love. It’s one we’ve been working on for weeks,” Klaus explains and he doesn’t go into too much detail past that.

            Confused, she takes the hand that he offers her and, whether she likes it or not, she’s being dragged out of the room. Although she has no idea where they’re taking her, she knows it’ll do her some good to get her mind off of things for a little while. What feels like hours later, Elizabeth listens carefully to her surroundings. She can hear nothing of use and she hates that she is still in the dark about whatever it is that’s going on. Growing impatient, she turns her head in the direction she knows Klaus stands and reaches out to grab his hand.

            “Are you ever going to take this blindfold off of my face?” She asks. “I feel like you guys are doing something dangerous.”

            Klaus turns to her and steps closer, wrapping an arm around her. “I will gladly take the blindfold off as soon as Freya kicks her ass in gear.”

            “Klaus, one more comment about how slow this is going and I will gladly snap your neck,” Freya snaps from somewhere on the ground.

            "Always so temperamental," he sighs.

            Elizabeth rests her head against his side, scooting back on the rock she sits on. She had been so upset earlier and she still is but, as he requested, she’s allowing him to help her. Now, when she agreed to that, she hadn’t imagined herself behind blindfolded and sat on a rock for an hour. Since being in the mystery location, she has not been able to figure out where it is, they are nor can she deduce anything from the sounds and smells around her. Normally, she would be worried by since Freya is here, she’s doing her best to trust whatever is happening.

            "This is going to get really complicated," Freya says slowly.

            "More complicated than it already is?" Klaus asks and Elizabeth can hear the snarky smile in his tone. "That's rather impressive, sister."

            "I'm sorry, do you want to do this?" She demands. "Because the last time I checked, you are incapable of practicing magic. If I mess this up, we’re all going to be in a lot of trouble. Davina was supposed to be here to help me. I’m doing this entirely on my own."

            Saying nothing on the matter, Klaus turns his attention down on the woman who leans against him. Gently, he tucks her hair behind her ear and watches as she furrows her eyebrows at the touch. Bending down, he kisses the top of her head, allowing his lips to linger for a moment. She has done a remarkable job of holding herself together since she exploded on him, but he can still sense her deep struggles. Between finding out that most of her family betrayed her and knowing that she will have to kill Lyanna, he’s not sure how she has made it this far without flipping her switch. He would have done it centuries ago if he had been in her position. With a heavy sigh, Elizabeth pulls away from him and stands up, crossing her arms over her chest. Freya mutters more complaints under her breath and she shifts around on the ground, holding her hands out and flat in front of her.

            “Klaus, I need your blood," Freya then says, which only confuses Elizabeth further. "I have to do this backward. This is extremely tricky."

            Rolling his eyes, Klaus bites into his wrist and holds it over the mouth in which Freya holds open until an ample amount has been used. Stepping away, he wipes the blood from his wrist and crosses his arms over his chest, watching as Freya flips through her grimoire, looking for the page with the right spell. Snapping her fingers, the candles around the body ignite and she closes her eyes, holding her hand above the body's heart.

            "Klaus, I'm literally afraid to ask what it is you two are doing," Elizabeth says quietly as she listens attentively to the Latin incantation that flows out of Freya's mouth.

            "All will make soon, sweetheart," he says back in a hushed voice. "Freya has been working on this for quite some time. I do believe it will lift your spirits."

            Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she continues to stand in the unknown location under the unknown circumstances. Freya's hand begins to shake as she continues to speak, her Latin coming out faster with each passing second. Suddenly, Elizabeth hears a loud gasp and the sound of somebody struggling to take in air. Had there been another person here she couldn’t sense? What is happening?

            "Klaus, I need you to hold him down," Freya says hurriedly.

            Moving quickly, Klaus drops to his knees and presses down on his shoulders, making sure he cannot move. Freya continues the spell until she reaches the last incantation. She speaks the line three times over before stopping and drawing her hand away, reaching hurriedly for the blood bag off to the left. Before the spell can wear off, she squeezes the human blood into the mouth of the body and as Klaus pulls his hands away, they both wait patiently until they hear the sound of a heartbeat. Then, moving faster than humanly possible, the body sits up and looks around with urgency.

            "Welcome back to the land of the living," Freya says with a smile.

            "Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Elizabeth asks, her tone nothing short of impatient.

            "You may take your blindfold off now, love," Klaus says. "The spell is complete."

            Relieved, Elizabeth finally unties the knot from the back of her head and pulls away from the black fabric from her eyes. Blinking a few times, she is disturbed by the face they are in a crypt in the graveyard. No wonder everything smelt weird. Looking down, she audibly gasps at what she finds. Nathan looks up at her and smiles, clumsily getting to his feet. She feels like she’s hallucinating. Has she finally cracked under the pressure? Is this some kind of twisted dream?

            “H-How?” She asks, only able to form a single word in the midst of her shock.

            Freya dusts off her knees as she stands, feeling incredibly proud of herself. "We all felt so awful for what happened to him. It was very difficult. Davina and I had to find a spell to regrow a heart and then we had to create a resurrection spell that would successfully bring him back. It wasn’t until Keelin found an ancient spell from the first covens in Greece that we found a solid way to do this."

            "There was only one drawback," Klaus reminds her. “No spell is perfect, especially ones from the first covens.”

            Freya nods and turns to Nathan, giving him the floor to explain. Clearing his throat, he looks between each of the faces that stare back at him, unsure of how to phrase what has happened. Scratching the back of his neck, he makes a face and laughs a little. "I'm uh… I’m kind of a vampire now," he says. "Which feels really weird, actually."

            Surging forward, Elizabeth pulls him roughly into her arms and she squeezes him harder than she has even been able to before. She was so sure she would never see him again, let alone _alive._ This is a miracle. I can't believe you’re actually here," she says. "Are you okay with this? With being a vampire?"

            Nathan nods his head as she steps back. "Freya was able to reach out to me and we talked about it. She said this would be the only way I could come back and I agreed. I was kind of tired of being, you know... Dead."

            "Now you’re just dead with a functional heartbeat," Klaus says as he stands from the ground. "This is a good thing, Elizabeth. Now your family won't be entirely gone after you kill Lyanna."

            Glowering at him, Elizabeth makes an irritated face. "Could you be any more insensitive? Or have you completely forgotten about the rest of my family you got killed?"

            Klaus makes a face, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Easy, love. I haven’t forgotten. I'll mind my tongue.”

            Nathan looks down at the tux he wears, still trying to understand where it came from. It's much nicer than anything he ever owned. Shaking his head, he gives up on the idea and looks back up at Elizabeth. "Honestly, you finding out that Charles is actually your father is really freaky," he says. "I want to know how that worked out."

            "You're not the only one," she sighs.

            "Yes, well... Family reunion time is over," Klaus butts in carelessly. "There is still loads to do. I'm sure Freya can find something for you to do, Nathan, should you decide to come back with us."

            "Yeah, I'll come back with you guys," he agrees. "I'll do anything I can to help."

            "Excellent. You can start by taking a shower," Klaus says as he walks away. "You smell like a rotting corpse."

            Elizabeth rolls her eyes at his rudeness, watching him as he leaves. When she’s alone with Nathan, she turns to him and welcomes the hug he gives her. This time, it’s different. He’s not hugging because this is the first time they’re seeing each other again. No, he’s hugging her because he knows what she has gone through in his absence. He watched over her and saw it all happen, never finding peace for himself because he couldn’t force himself to move on. He watched all of her struggles and he wanted nothing more than to reach out and hug her. Now, he has that chance. Deep down, he knows it won’t make any of it better, but he’s hopeful it will put her at ease.

            “You’re a tough cookie, sis,” He says, rubbing her back.

            “I’m not as strong as I need to be,” she mumbles against his chest.

            “And no one is, but you’ve made it this far and I know you can keep going,” he says confidently. “Even if everyone in your life craps out, you’ll always have me now. I’m not going anywhere.”

            She sighs and pulls away from him a bit. Things are going to be hard, but he’s right. She can keep going and, in the end, it’s going to be okay. It has to be.

            “If it has pineapple in it, feel free to keep it,” Elizabeth laughs, pushing the pastry away.

            “What’s wrong with pineapple?” Nathan asks, taking the pastry for himself. He doesn’t care that this is his fourth one in a row. He doesn’t care _at all._ After being dead, he deserves to indulge in such wonderful little things.

            “Elizabeth doesn’t like pineapple flavoring in anything,” Freya explains, crossing her arms. “She almost puked when I gave her a pineapple Popsicle once.”

            Making a horrified face that mocks her, Nathan takes a large bite out of the pastry and makes obnoxious sounds of pleasure. “It’s so good, though!”

            She laughs and as she looks over at the entrance of the compound, her laughs fade out. Davina stumbles in and she seems dazed, like she had been sleeping for the past several days and only just now woke up. As she draws closer to the table they stand around, she can hear how slow her heart is beating it’s unnatural. Panic begins to creep up her spine. Something has happened. There’s a look in Davina’s tortured eyes and she realizes too late what that look means. Lunging forward, Davina grabs Freya by the and plunges her teeth down into her neck. Freya screams as Davina feeds on her and Elizabeth bolts from her spot, moving impossibly fast.

            “Davina, no!” She yells, grabbing the woman by her middle and ripping her back furiously.

            The two of them tumble to the floor and Davina pushes away with a great force, scrambling to her knees as she comes to her senses for the first time all day. She looks around in horror and tastes the blood on her tongue, bringing a trembling hand to her mouth. "Oh god," she chokes out. "W-What's happening? What's happening to me?"

            Freya clamps her hand over the wound her neck and breathes heavily, trying to understand what just happened. "Davina..."

            Elizabeth desperately looks over her shoulder, looking for anyone who might know what’s going on. "Kol! Elijah!" She yells loudly.

            Pushing herself back onto her feet, she slowly walks to Davina with her hands raised to show that she means her no harm. Davina touches the trail of warm blood on her chin and she shakes her head, hyperventilating. She feels wrong on the inside, like she’s becoming something she’s not supposed to be.

            “W-What's happening to me?" She asks again, almost yelling with how panicked she feels.

            "What going on?" Elijah asks, entering the main floor in a rush with Kol walking by his side. Neither seems to have heard the commotion.

            "Davina fed on my blood," Freya answers and the way she says it makes it seem like she knows what has happened.

            Kol widens his eyes and drops to his knees beside his wife, prying her hand away from her mouth so he can see for himself. For the first time, blood rushes to her tearful eyes and she tries to twist away from him, screaming to be let go. She doesn’t want to be held and she doesn’t want to be around any of them. She wants to get herself as far away from them as possible.

            “She’s… She turned,” Elizabeth states, dumbfounded. “Lyanna or-or Charles must have done… They must have done something to her.”

            “I'm s-sorry. I'm so sorry," Davina sobs, feeling the pain of her fangs dropping for the first time. She collapses against Kol and he holds her, looking up at Elizabeth for any kind of explanation that makes sense. Only, she cannot say anything that would make this better.

            "She must have killed Davina and made her a sleeper agent," Freya explains, wincing as the blood begins to pool out from in between her fingers. “She’s starting to attack us directly now.”

            "So, what, then?" Kol demands angrily. "My wife is a bloody vampire now?"

            Davina begins to twist uncomfortably again and she forces Kol’s hands off of her, breathing raggedly. She stumbles up to her feet and as the room begins to spin around her, she brings her hands to her head and she sobs loudly. Her entire body feels like it’s on fire. She can’t breathe through the pain.

            “This isn’t a normal transition,” Elijah says, watching as Davina’s eyes begin to glow a brilliant red. “Something is wrong with her.”

            Elizabeth slowly approaches her, taking a single step at a time to avoid making movements that are too quick and sudden. “Davina? You need to let us help you."

            "Get... away from me," she pants and she cries out when the veins in her body begin to glow as well. “I-I don’t want to hurt… you.”

            “Davina, please,” she tries again. “Something has happened to you. We can help.”

            “No!”

            Suddenly, a powerful force erupts from Davina and everyone in the room is forced back. Elizabeth sails through the air and crashes against Elijah’s body, hitting her head against his. She groans and looks up as Davina throws her head back and screams, channeling so much magic that the entire main floor begins to shake. Violent winds tear through the room and the lights begin to flicker, making it impossible to focus on any one thing.

            “What the hell is happening to her?” Elizabeth yells, struggling to pry herself away from Elijah’s body as the force keeps knocking her back up against him. She claws at the ground, just barely able to hang onto one of the divots in the stones.

            “I believe it’s her magic!” Freya yells, hanging onto one of the support beams.

            Groaning, Elizabeth’s fingers begin to bleed and when the force grows stronger, she is no longer able to hang on. She and Elijah fly back together, crashing into the nearest wall. Elijah clutches onto her and tries to use his body as a shield, but even he can move so much. Then, as her body finally fails her, Davina stops screaming and she collapses to the floor, but she’s not the only one to do so. Freya, Kol, and Nathan all fall too, completely unconscious. Klaus and Rebekah appear in the room next and they seem horrified by what they struggled to witness, unsure of what to make of this sudden change of events. Climbing to her feet, Elizabeth hears the gate to the main entrance creek and in walks the very source of their problems.

            "Well, that was interesting," Lyanna says. "I'm not too sure what happened there, but it was fantastic, wasn't it?"

            "What the hell do you want?" Elizabeth demands, walking towards her sister.

            Lyanna smiles and crosses her arms, looking at all of the faces that stare back at her. "I'm in the mood to play a game."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH! This chapter was also so much fun for me to write. I spent a few days writing the scene between Elizabeth and Klaus because I felt it was so important for their relationship. Things from here on out are going to be pretty rocky! (I haven't forgotten about Charles, he will get whats coming for him in due time). 
> 
> JUST A TINY WARNING: Next Tuesday (the 17th), I will be having my wisdom teeth removed, which is a dental surgery, and I will be spending most of next week recovering from it (five days if I'm lucky). I doubt this will impact my uploading or writing as I will be mostly sitting down and relaxing the entire time, but I thought I should mention it in the off chance that it does. I will also be going back to college in a couple weeks but that, again, shouldn't interfere too heavily with my schedule. :)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	25. Rebekah Mikaelson Has a Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the mood to play a game, Lyanna takes it upon herself to trap Elizabeth, Klaus, Rebekah, and Elijah within the compound for two hours. The catch? Rebekah is carrying a cursed weapon and will stop at nothing to kill Elizabeth with Elijah's help.

Lyanna grins wide and forces her magic outward, making all four vampires drop to their knees in excruciating pain.

            “You and your friends have grown quite annoying, so I thought I would sweeten the pot. I figured revealing some of your darkest secrets was enough to tear you all apart but clearly, I underestimated your bonds,” she says darkly. “Elizabeth seems to be the girl everyone cares about. It only seems fair that I take her out while I still have the chance.”

            “Lyanna, please,” Elizabeth begs through the pain that makes her feel as if her head is being torn open.

            Laughing, Lyanna hops down from the desk and points to those who kneel before her. “For the next two hours, the lot of you will be trapped in this compound with no outside help. Rebekah will carry a cursed weapon. By midnight, she will put a bullet into Elizabeth,” she explains loudly enough for them to hear her clearly. “Think of it as a game of Cat and Mouse. Rebekah and Elijah will be spelled to kill Elizabeth and she, being the mouse, will do what she can to survive. When you awaken, the game will begin. I do hope the cat wins.”

            With a loud snap of her fingers, all four victims fall unconscious and when Elizabeth is able to open her eyes again, she opens them to a dark room that is only illuminated by the dull moonlight that seeps in through the small windows. Blinking, she makes out a figure across the room from her and as her eyes slowly focus, she can see that it’s Klaus' body. He remains slumped over, still unconscious from the spell. Lyanna didn’t mention him when speaking of the other two who will try to kill her. She can only hope that Klaus will serve as her only ally. Trying to move, Elizabeth winces as the last remains of the pain leave her body. It’s almost as if her body is asleep and is only waking up as fast as molasses moves.

            “Niklaus,” she calls out. Pushing herself forward, she crawls until she is at his feet. With a slow-moving hand, she nudges his foot. “Klaus, please wake up.”

            Looking around the room again, she discovers they are in the garage. No matter where Elijah and Rebekah are, it will take no time at all for them to find them. They’re sitting ducks. In the center of the room rests a single blood bag and she crawls to it, bringing it to her lips. As she drinks, she feels her body regain its former power again. Smiling almost, she makes her way back to Klaus. Only this time, she backhands him across his face. Jumping awake, Klaus looks around at panic and flinches when Elizabeth shoves a blood bag into his lips abruptly with no warning at all. He grasps it, narrowing his eyes as he drinks. 

            “Feed,” she commands. “I don’t know where Rebekah and Elijah are. We need to move before they find us.”

            Coming to his senses, Klaus pulls away from the bag and licks his bottom lip. “There are only so many places where we can hide,” he says wearily. “I could snap their necks, but that will only buy us so much time.”

            “Or, they could snap _your_ neck and I wind up with a bullet in my chest. I can’t fight two Originals on my own. Maybe one, but never two,” she counter-responds. “Either way, we need to move.”

            Climbing to his feet, Klaus looks around and decides to take the back way out. Grabbing Elizabeth’s hand, he pulls her along and navigates through the darkened hallway until they come out into a small room. Elizabeth walks forward and cracks the door open, peering out into the main floor of the compound. She sees neither of the Originals on the floor and with silent movements, she and Klaus make their way out. It is then, of course, that Elijah strikes seemingly out of nowhere. He tackles Klaus to the ground and the brothers tumble, impacting hard on a stone pillar.

            “Elizabeth, you need to run,” Elijah yells, effortlessly dodging the first punch that Klaus attempts to throw at him. “I am trying to fight the spell, but every fiber in my body wants to obey Lyanna’s command. I _will_ help Rebekah kill you.”

            Klaus wastes no time to throw his brother off of him and into the nearby wall. With wide eyes, Elizabeth takes off somewhere deep into the compound. She stops abruptly at the sight of Rebekah zig-zagging the hallway, peering into every room and bedroom she passes. The colt in her hand gleams in the moonlight and although her sister is a sadistic freak, Elizabeth is glad Lyanna chose to leave the lights off. Holding her breath, she side-steps into a mostly unused closet and closes the door behind her. Listening closely, she waits until Rebekah’s footsteps pass by before slipping back out in the hallway. That confuses her. Realistically, Rebekah should have been able to hear her heart beating. She takes a deep breath, clearing her mind. _Think logically._ If Elijah still has control over his mind and words, then maybe Rebekah does too. Maybe Rebekah is numbing down her abilities subconsciously in order to spare her life.

            Coming to one of the banisters, Elizabeth looks down at the main floor where Klaus and Elijah carry on with their fight loudly. Neither brother wishes to fight the other, but they simply have no choice. Looking over her shoulder, Elizabeth checks for any sight of Rebekah before bolting down the stairs and running over to the corridor that leads to the dining room. Her feet skids to a stop when Rebekah intercepts her and she yells in shock when the youngest Original lifts the colt and fires a bullet. Dodging out of the way, Elizabeth jumps to the side.

            “Seriously, Rebekah?” Elizabeth complains.

            “I’m not in control of my body. Elijah and I cannot control our actions,” Rebekah explains as she raises the gun again. “Get out of my sight before I kill you. You have to hide or find a way to kill us, little sister.”

            Not wanting to spend much time in the line of fire, Elizabeth attempts to run away. However, she is clotheslined by Elijah’s strong arm. As the wind is knocked out of her, she falls back to the ground, hitting her head, and only has a second to recollect her thoughts before Elijah is forcefully picking her up by her arms. Honestly, she would rather face Elijah than Rebekah right now. Only one of them has the means to kill her and if she can find a way to take out Elijah, she has an advantage.

            “Didn’t I tell you to run off _before_ I could get my hands on you?” He asks.

            “It’s not like hiding from an Original in their place of residence is an easy task, Elijah,” she snaps. “Would it be stupid of me to ask you if I can snap your neck?”

            “Quite,” he sighs, tightening his hold.

            Elizabeth grunts and jerks her shoulder powerfully, trying to break free of Elijah’s impossible hold. Twisting around with a fierce force, she swings her arm over his and forces his hand off of her shoulder with an unsatisfying popping sound. Her shoulder has been forced out of the socket. Moving in a blur, she sends her foot into his gut and Elijah flies across the broad room and into a second-floor banister. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of a lifeless Klaus on the floor. His neck had been snapped only minutes before. She curses under her breath as she realizes her one true method of defense has been eliminated from the game. She only has two options left. Hide or kill. Popping her shoulder back into place, she takes a deep breath. She’s a fighter and always has been. She can survive this.

            “Elizabeth, you cannot hold us both off until midnight,” Elijah warns as he walks towards her in a threateningly slow pace. "One of us will have to be shot and it will be you unless you find a way out." 

            “Thank you for the reminder,” she mutters.

            Eyes darting around the room, she lands on the decorative metal rods on the far wall. Running off, she jumps up several feet in the air and wraps her hand around one. Planting her feet onto the wall, she pulls until the metal groans and gives way. Dropping back down to the floor, she turns and is alarmed by Elijah’s closeness. He swings for her head and she drops down into a crouch, barely managing to knock him back in time. Stumbling, Elijah growls. Quickly, Elizabeth throws the metal rod at his chest and Elijah, moving impossibly fast, steps to the side just enough for the rod to miss his heart. It stabs him in the chest and he groans, coughing a little.

            “I suspect you will not get very far with this tactic,” Elijah warns as he rips the rod from his body.

            In a matter of a single second, he is behind her once again and he forcefully grips her shoulders. She will never be able to best an Original in a fight like this. She has no advantages, no way to escape, no weapons. She was doomed from the start. As Elijah pushes her into the heart of the room, Rebekah emerges with the colt held in her hand tightly. Her face is angry and it’s clear that she’s exceptionally upset over the thought of what she has to do now. Elijah stops walking then and he squeezes Elizabeth’s shoulder, making sure she cannot run away again. She’s trapped and now she has to face something she never thought she would ever have to.

            “There has to be a way to get around this,” Elijah mutters. “I promised to protect you, I will not have you shot down.”

            Elizabeth sighs as she eyes the gun. “I’ll admit, this is not how I thought I would die as a vampire. I figured it would a stake to the heart or some kind of mass fire. Maybe a sacrifice play to save someone…” she rambles. “Look, for some reason Lyanna cannot kill me directly. I don’t blame either of you if this is how I go down. This is all her.”

            Rebekah yells loudly, her hand beginning to shake as she stands no more than five feet away from her target. Elizabeth stands petrified in front of Elijah as he holds her in place, unable to run under his strength. No, she can’t die like this. She won’t let it happen. There has to be a way to get out of this.

            “Elizabeth, I cannot drop this gun,” Rebekah says through a clenched jaw.

            Refusing to succumb to her fear, Elizabeth takes a deep breath to keep her voice calm and level. “Just focus, Rebekah,” she pleads. “You have to do this. We only have to survive until midnight. Lyanna’s spell will wear off then. She isn’t powerful enough to hold it for longer.”

            Elijah’s eyes dart between his sisters and he wants to so desperately release Elizabeth, but his hands are frozen on her shoulders.  Elizabeth keeps strict eye contact with Rebekah and as tears roll down the old Original’s face, she smiles just slightly. This is her loophole. Emotion. That has been Charles and Lyanna’s greatest weakness since the beginning. They don’t realize just how powerful emotions are and it will be emotion that gives her a key to break out of this impossible situation. The mind of an Original is powerful and not even Lyanna, whose powers are drawn from Death himself, cannot control them completely. There is always a way. Klaus has taught her that much. His mind is the most complex thing she has ever encountered before.

            “Hold onto that emotion, Rebekah. Use it to fight the spell,” she says sternly. “You can do this. I believe in you.”

            As her thumb pulls the hammer back on the gun, Rebekah clenches her jaw. She is afraid. She whimpers and tears are falling down her cheeks, her face contorted in pain. She never wanted to be the one to strike Elizabeth down. In her life, Elizabeth is one of the few people who have never betrayed her in any capacity. “The bullets are cursed, Liz,” she reminds the young vampire. “They will have devastating consequences.”

            “So, _fight_ ,” Elizabeth yells loudly as she pulls against Elijah’s hold. “You can fight the spell. Use your fear, use your anger. _Fight it._ You are a damn Original, Rebekah. You are stronger than the magic. You _are_ stronger than Death. Our emotions are our greatest tool. Get angry, get furious. You can do this. Fight it.”

            As her finger wraps around the trigger, Rebekah fights with every ounce of strength within her body. A pesky spell cannot be her undoing. She has survived far worse. With a loud bang, the gun goes off and Rebekah squeezes her eyes shut as she cannot bring herself to see what she has done. Elizabeth stares with wide eyes, her heart slamming against her chest. Elijah’s grip loosens on Elizabeth’s shoulders and he stumbles back a step, looking down at the wound in his shoulder. Feeling rather dizzy, he collapses to the ground.

            “Rebekah!” Elizabeth yells, dropping to her knees.

            Rebekah opens her eyes to the scene before her and she gasps, surprised by what she sees. The feeling inside of her to kill Elizabeth is no longer there. She feels completely normal again, but there are consequences for what she has done. “Oh no… Elijah!”

            Below her hands that frantically work to untie his tie, Elijah convulses and gasps in short breaths. Rebekah is beside her brother within a single breath and she cups the side of his face, angling it to look up at her.

            “His pupils are dilating,” she assesses.

            "Rebekah, you need to go into Freya's office and find  _anything_ that can slow this down," Elizabeth orders. "I'm not going to let him suffer for taking the bullet." 

            Huffing, Elizabeth slides her arms underneath the man below her and she hoists him into her arms. Rebekah speeds off in a whoosh and Elizabeth runs up the stairs effortlessly, holding onto Elijah as tightly as she can physically. Once in the main living room, she rests his body upon the couch with ease. Beads of sweat have gathered on his forehead and he reaches out to her, firmly grasping onto the collar of her shirt. She stares at him with wide eyes. Rebekah may have been able to break through the spell, but she has no idea about Elijah right now. 

            “Elizabeth, I can feel my mind slipping,” he explains hurriedly. “This bullet will not kill me, but I fear what I may do to you and Rebekah. Werewolf venom… I believe. And… something… something else… I haven’t felt this before.”

            Shaking her head, Elizabeth reaches up to turn on the lamp on the end table. With the light illuminating his wound, she can see now what kind of damage has been thrust upon him. He is beginning to rot. This is far worse than desiccation. Lyanna chose the colt because she knew how much pain it would cause upon successful use. “Elijah, we are family. I may be royally pissed off with you, but I’m not going to abandon you. Not now. We’re going to help you,” she says sternly. “Hayley didn’t leave your side when Klaus bit you all those years ago, now did she?”

            Sighing heavily, Elijah releases her shirt and drops his arm limply over the edge of the couch as he recalls the day in which Elizabeth is referencing. Rebekah appears at the door then with her arms full of supplies then and she seems horrified by the sight her brother has become. Elizabeth looks over her shoulder and spots a pair of forceps in her hand.

            “We need to get the bullet out,” she says urgently. “I’m afraid the magic has already taken its effect, but it’s not doing him any good to keep it in there. Give me those.” With the forceps now in her hand, Elizabeth looks wearily down at Elijah. “I need you to stay still,” she then warns.

            Bracing himself, Elijah grips either side of the couch and he turns his face towards the cushions in order to give her as much light as possible. Hesitantly, Elizabeth spreads the wound open with her fingers and plunges the forceps inside. She searches for a minute, looking for any foreign body that shouldn’t be lodged in his shoulder. Elijah groans from the pain, extending his legs out and slamming his heel into the arm of the couch. Upon finding the bullet, Elizabeth grasps onto it and rips it from his body with a rather gruesome splatter of blood followed by the sound of tearing. Elijah whimpers and turns back to his youngest sisters, fighting the urge to attack them for causing him such pain.

            “Rebekah, what do we got to slow this down?” Elizabeth asks curiously. “I don’t want him to lash out and kill us.”

            From the coffee table where Rebekah set all of her gathered supplies, she picks up a small bowl full of a greenish-gray paste. “This herbal spread is used on fatal wounds. Freya taught me how to make it a long time ago,” she explains. “Apply it to the wound and it should help.”

            Grabbing the bowl, Elizabeth dips her fingers into the rather putrid-smelling paste and she gently rubs into onto Elijah’s bullet wound. Much to their collective surprise, the paste burns him and he yells, arching his back off of the couch. Rebekah moves fast and forces him back down from behind the couch, forcing him to lie still until the paste is applied in full. Looking at the damage now, Elizabeth follows the black veins all the way down his arm and they have started to creep up his neck as well. 

            “We’re going to need something more than some magic juju herbal paste,” she mutters mostly to herself. “If Freya was here right now, what would she do? There must be something we can do.”

            Rebekah thinks back on her sister’s many lessons, trying to latch onto anything that will help them in their current situation. “She’d cast some spell to slow the process… She’d… She would look at the colt and try to figure out the loophole to the curse.”

            Elijah growls then and both sisters jump, watching as his fangs drop and his fingers dig into the couch, tearing the fabric. He’s fighting his instincts now. Elizabeth grabs the bloody bullet from the end table and she holds into the light, looking at the symbols etched onto the lead. For the most part, it’s all gibberish to her but one symbol sticks out to her. It’s familiar and she thinks it’s exactly what they need to undo their problem. Running from the study, she goes out to the main floor of the compound and she finds the casing from the bullet laying on the floor where it had been left. Running back to the living room, she examines the casing and finds the same symbol printed on the end of it where the hammer struck. 

            “Elizabeth, have you found something?” Rebekah asks as she tries desperately to keep Elijah pinned to the couch. He’s writhing now and he sounds like he’s crying. Neither of them can imagine the pain he is going through. 

            Looking between the bullet head and the casing, Elizabeth shakes her head. “I’m not sure. This symbol is familiar,” she says slowly. “I saw this a long time ago… Lyanna’s grimoire or maybe my father’s… I’m not sure.”

            “Trade places with me,” Rebekah orders. “I’ll go look through Freya’s things. Maybe there’s a dictionary of some sort for mysterious bullet symbols.”

            Swapping spots, Elizabeth kneels onto the couch and secures an arm over Elijah’s chest to help stop him from doing something he will regret later. Rebekah is gone within the blink of an eye and from the coffee table, Elizabeth grabs the washcloth that had been sitting in cold water. Gently, she wrings it out and brings it to Elijah’s forehead, hoping to ease his fever. In their time in each other’s lives, there have only been a handful of moments where she has seen Elijah like this. Elijah is a powerful being and to see him fall to something so mundane as a gun with cursed bullets… It freaks her out.

            “Had the circumstances been _significantly_ different,” Elijah says with a strained and tired voice, “I would have taken the bullet for you.”

            Elizabeth smiles and even though she may be putting too much faith into his grip on his actions, she climbs onto the couch and rests his head into her lap comfortably. He looks up at her with bloodshot eyes and ever so gently he touches her hand, conveying his gratefulness as he cannot bring himself to thank her. He coughs then, blood splattering out of his mouth and Elizabeth looks at his neck to find that the blackness in his veins has reached his jawline. She’s not entirely sure what will happen once his entire body has been poisoned and she doesn’t have it in her to find out. She will not lose Elijah… not like this. Not by Lyanna’s hand.

            “Lyanna,” he breathes, the reality around him fading away.

            Elizabeth freezes momentarily, knowing exactly where Elijah’s mind has gone. She swallows her discomfort and reaches to rest the cloth back into the water. It’s not doing either of them much good as it is. The fever will not be broken until the poison runs its course. Elijah reaches upwards and secures a hand around her bicep, whispering her sister’s name once again. He needs to show her something, something he hadn’t thought to show her before. In his touch, she is granted access to his mind and she inhales sharply at the imagines she sees.

            “ _My dear Elijah… I’ve been searching for you all day, my love,_ ” Lyanna says with an all too familiar smile on her face. It has been quite some time since Elizabeth has seen that look of happiness upon her sister’s face. But she knows what day this is and she knows this was the last time Lyanna ever smiled like that.

            Elijah smiles back at her and he gently cups either side of her face, leaning down to kiss her soft lips. “ _I’m fairly certain Elizabeth would have my head if she knew that I preyed upon her sister. I can only imagine the hell she would rain upon me._ ”

            Lyanna laughs happily, but then a darkness washes into her brilliantly blue eyes. Elizabeth watches with horror, seeing for the first time what Lyanna’s final moments were like before they lost her completely. She has never stopped thinking about this day and it has haunted her deeply.

            “ _Oh, Elijah. My sister knows of our love. She knew it from the moment she saw us together for the first time, my love,_ ” Lyanna says, touching his lips. “ _Though I do wonder… How would you feel if you knew that Elizabeth has corrupted your baby brother?_ ”

            Elijah tilts his head to the side as he contemplates the outcomes of that brewing love. “ _It is rather true,_ ” he agrees with a nod. “ _Elizabeth does appear to have some sort of hold on my brother. Their bond only grew to be stronger after she turned. He is fascinated by her… I do wonder where that bond will take them._ ”

            Lyanna leans in to kiss Elijah once more and from the sleeve of her dress, she pulls a silver dagger. In all but two seconds, she impales Elijah with it and smiles as he looks to her with broken trust. Elizabeth flinches, her face twisting up in disgust. She wants to reach out and help her brother, but there’s nothing she can do. This is nothing but a memory.

            “ _I apologize, Elijah_ ,” she says innocently. “ _I simply cannot have two Originals running around. I do hope you’ll understand. One day, I hope you will join me. We are meant for greater things my love. We always have been._ ”

            Elizabeth is yanked from the memory and she looks down at Elijah, her eyes wide. He too looks up at her and for a single moment, his thoughts are clear. That was the day Lyanna died and he showed it to her for a specific reason. Whether he knew it or not, he showed her that memory to try and help her situation with Klaus. The exact meaning may not be clear to a stranger, but it's clear to her. _Their bond only grew to be stronger after she turned._ Shaking her head, she looks down on the black veins that now stretch in all directions all over his torso. Rebekah runs back into the room and she carries a book, her eyes darting all over the page.

            “I believe the symbol means connection,” she says with only a small pinch of confidence.

            “Connection…?” Elizabeth muses

            Elijah opens his eyes, blinking through the haze he looks through. “Put the bullet and the shell back together,” he says through a clenched jaw, his heart slamming against his chest.

            Fumbling, Rebekah puts the thick book down and takes both pieces of the bullet in hand. Carefully, she pushes them back together and the seal glows white brilliantly once they’ve been brought together back again. Elijah groans as his veins turn from black to red, glowing from the inside. Slowly, the infection rushes back to the wound where it fades away into nothing and closes up as if it had never been there to begin with. Elizabeth feels sparks of happiness and she presses her hand to his forehead, feeling for the fever. He’s no longer clammy or hot, but a perfectly regulated temperature for the human body. Well, as human as you can get when you're an Original vampire who is more than a thousand years old. 

            Klaus stumbles into the room as he rubs his neck with a pained expression on his face. Elizabeth looks to him and climbs off the couch, being careful with Elijah’s exhausted body as he groans in protest towards the movement. Klaus eyes his shirtless brother with wonder, but decides not to ask any questions for the time being. Slowly, Elizabeth walks to him and gestures to her body.

            “I didn’t get shot,” she says happily. “Rebekah fought the spell pretty hard and threw her aim off just enough to shoot Elijah instead.”

            “Well, I’ll consider that as payment for snapping my neck, then,” he says with a bite in his tone.

            Elizabeth gently rests a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it just slightly. “The _point_ is I survived the two hours. Your siblings are no longer trying to kill me,” she says happily.

            Klaus scrunches his nose for a brief second. Elizabeth smells entirely too much like Elijah’s sweat and blood. It's not a scent he likes on her and he would rather she smell like herself than anything remotely closer to her brother. “Yes, do remind me to tear your sister’s heart from her chest again.”

            With a sigh, Elizabeth drops her hand from her lover’s arm. “Unfortunately, putting an end to Lyanna is my job. As long as we don’t provoke her, she won’t retaliate. I hope. I'm not sure if we can handle another game of hers. She seems to be getting more and more creative with time.”

            Elijah slowly sits up on the couch and he peels his blood and sweat-soaked dress shirt from his body. “I am curious about one rather important detail,” he says. “Lyanna told me that she cannot permanently kill you directly. It cannot be done by her hands. I’m not stupid enough to believe that there isn’t a reason behind that. I would suggest we start poking around until we find that reason. It may come of use to us later.”

            Elizabeth makes a face and suddenly recalls something she heard within the memories Lyanna showed her. “Hang on… I might know something about that. My mother… Thomas said that…” she stumbles, struggling to put something together in her head. However, she doesn’t get to finish her thought because she unexpectedly recalls a situation that had been disrupted downstairs. Her eyes go wide as realization washes over her. “Oh my god,” she blurts. “Davina.”

            She takes off in a blur to the main floor and she skids to a stop beside Davina’s body, dropping down to her knee. She listens carefully for her heartbeat and when she hears it, she sighs with relief. She survived whatever the hell happened to her before Lyanna showed up. Gently, she reaches out to her to try and wake her but Davina’s hand snaps up and violently clasps around her wrist before she gets too far. Elizabeth gasps in pain, immediately moving to try and pry the young vampire’s hand away from her.

            “Davina, it’s me!” She yells, feeling her skin begin to burn as if it were set on fire. She could so easily break Davina’s wrist, but she doesn't want to cause her any more pain than she has already been through. She's suffered enough.  “Davina, let go of me. Open your eyes.”

            Hearing her calls, Davina takes in a violent inhale and jolts upwards, looking around the room in shock. Her eyes dart to Elizabeth and she stiffly releases her hold, her hand trembling. “What… What’s…” she tries, struggling. Her eyes are starting to glow red again and she can’t seem to breathe through her lungs. It feels as if they're about ready to pop.

            “Davina, look at me. You can work through this. You’re going to be okay,” Elizabeth says, moving so she is forced to look at her.

            From behind them, the others slowly start to wake up and once Kol is coherent again, he is rushing to her side. He lightly touches her back and hisses when the touch burns him. Davina forces herself to her feet and she brings a hand to her forehead as she struggles to function. Nothing is making sense to her. There’s a burning in her throat, a thirst for something she has never craved before. And her hands? They’re burning with power. Magic.

            “I-I’m a vampire,” she says, trying to make sense of it in her own crowded mind. “Why… Why do I still have magic? What’s wrong with me?”

            “It’s not entirely unheard of,” Klaus muses from where he stands at a distance, his arms crossing over his chest. Davina has bested him many times before and he's not about to get close to her right now while she has the power of being a vampire and is insanely unhinged. 

            Trying again, Elizabeth edges closer to her and keeps her hands raised. She knows a little something about the confusion that Davina is going through. “Kid, you gotta relax. I know it’s hard. I know you’ve got about a million things going through your head. Just start by breathing, okay? Let go of the magic. Let me help you through this.”

            Davina swallows thickly and looks down at her palms, forcing herself to breathe evenly for the first time since she died. “I don’t understand,” she whimpers, crying.

            Kol goes to move to her, but Elizabeth holds up her hand to warn him not to move. The situation is delicate right now. Keeping her pace slow, she walks right up to Davina and lightly touches her shoulder, no longer feeling a fire on her skin. Davina looks to her, searching for the answers to her questions. None of this makes sense to any of them. How can something so unique happen?

            “Freya, do you have a theory?” Elijah asks, walking over to his eldest sister.

            Freya nods her head slowly, thinking about all of what happened before she lost consciousness. “Truthfully, we may never know, but I believe I understand what happened,” she says. “Davina, you’ve been through a lot. Between the harvest and the ancestors… Between dying, having your power taken, becoming the gatekeeper… It’s a lot and all of that tragedy has branded you. You are a New Orleans witch and I think because you fed on my blood, which is powerful all on its own because I am a Mikaelson, it must have triggered something far greater than we will ever understand. For whatever reason, you were granted the ability to keep your access to magic. It may not seem like it, but this is a good thing.”

            Davina looks down at her hands again and she blinks away the tears that well up in her eyes, doing her best to wrap her mind around what has happened to her. Elizabeth can feel her pain and it breaks her heart to know that she’s going through something like this. The girl has suffered enough in her life.

            “I’ll help you, okay? We all will,” she says. “I know it’s probably not something you want to hear right now, but there is one little silver lining in all of this.” Davina looks to her in curiosity and Elizabeth smiles, her eyes flickering over to Kol. “You’re married to a vampire. Now that you’ve been turned into one, you guys will have the rest of forever to be with each other, Davina.”

            Kol walks up to them and because Elizabeth knows it’s safe now, she nods her head. He pulls his wife into his arms and he holds the back of her head, rubbing her back as she sobs against his shoulder. Wanting to give them privacy, Elizabeth turns on her heel and goes straight to Klaus who looks back at her with brief fear. She grabs his hand silently and pulls him along, taking him all the way back to her bedroom where she takes a deep breath and sits on the edge of her bed.

            “I was under the impression that you still wanted distance,” Klaus says, closing her door.

            Elizabeth shakes her head, kicking off her boots. “Elijah showed me a memory today while the bullet was poisoning him. It reminded me of something important,” she says, ignoring what he said almost completely. “Before I turned, I was already in love with you. We formed a bond with each other and when I did finally become a vampire, those feelings only manifested into something stronger. My love for you was magnified by a thousand and my bond with you… It became one of the most fundamental pieces of my structure. I’m stuck like this, Klaus. Yes, I’m still so deeply hurt by what you did, but that damn bond that we have… I can’t ignore it.”

            Klaus stares at her, not entirely sure of what to say. He knows that the bond she’s talking about exists between them. It was formed the night that they met and over the course of five hundred years, it turned into something exceptionally powerful. Neither of them is quite sure of what it means, but it’s there and it’s never going to go away. It’s their own personal curse. No matter how much they fight, no matter how much she wants to hate him, no matter how many times he may try to send her off… It’s impossible to leave. The love they feel for each other will always pull them back to each other. It's their greatest weakness but at the same time, it also serves are their greatest tool.

            “Tell me what you need,” he then says, needing to take care of her. 

            Elizabeth pushes away from her bed and she crowds into his space, moving his hands to her waist. She holds them there for a while, looking deeply into his blue eyes. “I need you. You keep me grounded and you keep my head above the water, Klaus. I just… I need you. We'll work through everything that comes after.”

            Nodding his head, Klaus leans in to kiss her and he’s so gentle about it that it almost feels like he’s afraid. Elizabeth pulls on him and slides her arms around his body, looking to get him as close to her as physically possible. Her mind is a mess after all that has happened within the last several days. She doesn’t know what to trust or what to do, but she can’t ignore what she has become. This is who she is and the man who is kissing her now? That’s the mess of a man she loves. She became his the moment he found her in that damned forest. And somehow, some way… they’ll figure out how to get through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having too much fun going through these chapters and posting them. Things will be coming to a boiling point with Lyanna soon and everything will fall into place. Then, the sequel will start and I'm going to put you guys through hell! THANK YOU so much for your support. It means so much to me :)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	26. Under no Circumstances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After helping Davina begin the process of accepting what she has become, Elizabeth and Elijah share a conversation they've needed to have for quite some time. Later, she decides it's time Klaus fully understands the extent of her trauma that she went through with Charles.

“Davina, you need to breathe,” Elizabeth cautions. “Let me walk you through it.”

            Davina angrily kicks the coffee table, sending it across the room and into the nearby wall. “This isn’t right. I’m not supposed to be like this!” She yells loudly.

            “I know, kid. Believe me, I get it. And right now, I get that you’re angry. However, one of the issues of being a vampire is our heightened emotions. You need to learn how to control what you’re feeling.”

            “No, you _don’t_ get it. My body is at war. Vampires are not supposed to be able to practice magic,” she seethes through her clenched jaw. And in a quick blur, she is moving to strike Elizabeth out of blinding rage but the young vampire doesn’t get far.

            Elizabeth, being five-hundred years older than her deemed apprentice, catches her by the wrist effortlessly and stares furiously into her enraged eyes. “ _Davina_ ,” she says in a dark, warning tone. “I am much stronger than you. Magic or not, I can kill you in a matter of a single second. Never forget that. I can’t help you if you are trying to throw punches at my head every two seconds. You need to channel this anger elsewhere and get a grip on yourself.”

            Taking the deep breath that she has needed to take since the start of her transition, Davina drops her head and tries to stave off her burning aggression. Elizabeth has a point. She’s not going to get anywhere if she remains so hostile. “Okay, I’m sorry. Can you start over? How do I do this? I feel like every fiber of my body is a live wire right now. I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

            Elizabeth nods, getting the sense that she will actually be listened to this time. “You’ve always heard that turning into a vampire heightens the human emotions. Now, you’re feeling it. You know that it’s like now and you’re angry. That’s normal. The rage is probably the only thing you can think about right now, but you _cannot_ let it control you. Instead, use that anger and turn it into fuel for your other emotions. Happiness, your love for Kol, protectiveness.”

            “Liz, I-I’m trying but all I can think about is how angry I am and how badly I want blood,” Davina admits, her hands shaking.

            “You’ve seen what anger does to vampires. Look at Klaus for example. It can turn you into something nasty and it can make you do terrible things,” she says. “And I’m not going to lie to you, alright? Anger has made me do awful things too that I can’t take back. I was a mess for almost forty years after my family was slaughtered. Take what you’re feeling and push it into something good. You can do it.”

            From the bag on the armchair, she pulls out a single blood bag and holds it out to Davina, but yanks it back when the blood rushes to her eyes. “ _Control,_ Davina. I know you’re basically a baby, but you can learn. Control is the first thing you need to master before we can even think about letting you near humans again. Do you want this blood? Do you want to feed for the since you turned? _Relax_.”

            Taking a deep breath, Davina forces herself to calm down. The blood goes away and with certainty, she takes the blood bag and brings it to her lips so she can drink. It feels incredibly good on her tongue and it takes away the burning she feels in her throat, dulling her craving. She drinks slowly, not wanting to give Elizabeth any more reason to distrust her impulses and control.

            “Good,” Elizabeth says encouragingly. “You’re doing good. It’s going to be a long while before you get it under control and even when you turn to be as old as I am, there are going to be times when you just can’t. The important thing is to learn how to ignore the thirst when you’re around people.”

            Once finished with the bag, Davina rolls her head back and exhales slowly. “I know it was stupid of me, but I never saw myself becoming a vampire…”

            “It’s not stupid of you. Not at all. But you are lucky, Davina. Everyone in this compound is going to make sure you get through this. Freya will help you get control of your magic again and Kol will help teach you about the quirks of being a vampire. And me? I’ll answer any questions you have and teach you what I know.”

            Davina nods her head, still trying to wrap her head around what happened to her. Even now that she has turned, she has no idea what Charles or Lyanna did to her. It’s all completely blank. “Can you teach me how to fight?” She asks nervously. “I’ve heard that you are the best fighter here.”

            A little amused, Elizabeth laughs and averts her eyes to the ground. “Ah… I’m not sure where you heard that but… yeah. I can show you what I know.”

            “I’ve seen you fight, Liz. The way you move is amazing. It’s so fluid. Josh told me about how you took those guys in the alleyway when you were running from Marcel. And I’ve heard the stories of you besting Klaus in fights,” Davina says almost excitedly. “You’re amazing.”

            Flattered, Elizabeth nods her head with a slight smile on her face. Taking a step back she folds her hands together behind her back. “Try and hit me.”

            Bubbling with exciting anticipation, Davina goes to strike Elizabeth and moving in a blur, she dodges the attempt as if it were the easiest thing on earth. Davina tries again and this time, Elizabeth grasps her wrist and spins the young vampire around, pinning her arm behind her back. Davina growls in frustration, striking her elbow back. Although it was a smart move and she applauds her for thinking of it, Elizabeth has been in many fights and she knew it was coming. Quickly, she knocks Davina’s legs out from under her and she drops to the floor like a sack of heavy bricks.

            “Fighting becomes something else entirely when you’re a vampire. We can move faster, hit faster, and think faster,” Elizabeth explains. “You can’t overthink your moves. We are purely instinctual creatures. Go with your gut first, thoughts second. Your strength and dexterity know what to do.”

            Taking her word to heart, Davina grabs Elizabeth’s arms and flips herself off the ground and around to her back. That maneuver would have been impossible if she were still human. Grunting, Elizabeth rips her arms free and she spins to grab Davina by her shoulders, using her grip to slam her foot into her gut and send her flying across the room into the couch.

            “Whoa,” Davina says, dazed.

            “It’ll take a lot of practice. I have five-hundred years under my belt and I have fought with many skilled vampires. Klaus, Marcel, Damon Salvatore, and Elijah to name a few. They’ve all given me skills and with time, I will teach them all to you,” Elizabeth says happily.

            From behind, Elijah enters the room wearing an amused expression. He’s happy to see that Davina is handling her transition well. It could have gone terribly wrong had she been slightly more unhinged. “Showing off, are we?” He asks Elizabeth.

            “Only a little,” Elizabeth laughs. “Do you need something?”

            “Not necessarily. However, Kol is looking for you, Davina,” Elijah says and, in a blur, the new vampire runs off. “We have something to discuss, Elizabeth.”

            From within his coat pocket, Elijah pulls out a newspaper clipping and he passes it to her with an unusually stiff hand. She takes it and reads the headline three times over, taking in the heavy weight of what has happened. Six people have been killed and this time, they may as well have been in their backyard. Lyanna has done it again.

            “What are the locals saying about this?” She asks, lowering the paper.

            “According to Freya, they’re scared. Your sister will not stop until she gets what she wants and she will do anything to get as much power as she needs.”

            Sighing, Elizabeth looks down to the ground. They’re stuck. If they move against Lyanna, she’ll strike and there’s no telling what she will do. “How is Freya? Has she been getting any sleep? I know she wants to help but I don’t want her to run herself into the ground. We’re going to need her.”

            Elijah shakes his head, adjusting his tie. There’s a look on his face that would suggest he’s worried, but he does well enough to hide it. “Not that I’m aware of. She’s been stretching herself thin and she told me last night at the dinner I shared with her and Keelin that she has started to feel the effects of Lyanna’s dark magic. Wherever he is, she can feel Death in the air.”

            “What does Keelin say about all of this?”

            “Keelin is just as worried as the rest of us are,” Elijah says honestly. “And believe me when I say I’m just as worried about Freya as you are. I’ve coaxed her into taking the next few days off from work. I’ll be taking on her responsibilities until she has rested.”

            Elizabeth nods, deciding that’s as good as it’s going to get. Freya may be strong, but she is human and she needs to be taking breaks every once in a while to keep up with all of the shit that happens in their lives. With their plan for Lyanna approaching so soon, it’s imperative that she be at her full potential. “So, what do we go about the killing?”

            “The last thing we need is unwanted attention,” Elijah sighs. “We’re sitting ducks until we can move against Lyanna which won’t be for another few weeks.”

            “Which Klaus has pointed out several times. What can we do?”

            Moving to the window, Elijah peers outside as if he checking for something. “I will reach out to my contacts. With enough compulsion, I believe we can steer this small issue elsewhere.”

            Biting back her frustration, Elizabeth closes her eyes for a brief second. Her mind is entirely too crowded. “And what do we do when she does this again? Compulsion only goes so far and only helps for so long.”

            “Then we do what we do best, Elizabeth,” Elijah says simply. “Lyanna can play her games, but I intend to be two steps ahead of her until we murder her.”

            “You’re starting to sound a lot like our favorite original hybrid, Elijah,” Elizabeth says with a small smile.

            “Yes, well… you know what they say about crazy ex-girlfriends.”

            Frowning slightly, Elizabeth walks over to him and gently rests a hand on his back. She has had no idea how she should approach this topic, it has long since been bouncing around in her head. However, it is one that must be discussed. “How are you handling this?” She asks. “Lyanna, I mean. With your history with her…”

            Elijah turns to face Elizabeth and he looks into her eyes, recalling the time in the 1500s when it was all so much simpler. “Your sister was touched by a terrible darkness, but she was not yet lost to us when Niklaus and I had met you. I had hoped that maybe I could spare her from falling,” he says, not holding anything back. “During her darkest period, it was always a struggle to keep her mind clear. Eventually, she chose the dark magic over her family and she was lost. When we killed her, I thought that would be the end of Lyanna. Now that she’s here, we’ve all seen how far she has fallen. I cannot help but feel that a small part of that is on me.”

            Elizabeth’s heart sinks low as she takes in what he has said. Elijah tries so hard to hold his family together, sometimes failing when the circumstances are unpreventable. She has long suspected that he feels at fault for what happened to Lyanna, but she had no idea it goes as deep as it has. “Elijah… Lyanna was already gone by the time we met you. She was gone long before our father died. I think when our mother died, she went with her. Her choosing the darkness is not on you but on me. I should have acknowledged it sooner.”

            “I believe a small part of it rests on all of us,” he says after a small pause. “And when it comes time, we will make up for our mistakes.”

            Wrapping her arms around herself, Elizabeth nods in agreement. Whether she likes it or not, the time is creeping upon them. Even though she would like to believe that her sister is not completely gone, she knows, deep down, that the sister she knew, the sister she had growing up, is long dead. The memories she has of her past are voided and absolutely anything she feels for her sister has to be set aside. She has to do this not only for herself but for Lyanna as well. She failed her sister and although it is tragic, killing her is the only way to save her.

            “You should call Hayley when you get the chance,” she encourages after a while. “I know you miss her.”

            “I do,” Elijah agrees. “And I wanted to thank you for keeping what we discussed a secret. I do still wish to take her hand in marriage. The timing is just… Inconvenient.”

            “The time will come. We just have to handle our little issues until then,” Elizabeth reminds him. And it’s true. There will be a time in which things are okay for a little while because that’s what always happens. They face something evil, things are okay for a while, and then the cycle starts over again. Sometimes the evil they have to fight are themselves.

            Elijah turns to face her and there’s something in his expression that is hard to read. He reaches out to her and tucks some of her hair behind her ear, appreciating her presence. “I know you are still quite upset with me and you should be, but I am glad you chose to stick alongside us. Losing you once, the pain I felt because I didn’t know where you were or if you were okay… I don’t think I could go through it again.”

            Elizabeth takes in what he’s saying and realizes that he sounds genuinely relieved. He has been weird around her since Lyanna revealed their secrets and she thought it was because he ashamed and while that may still be the cases, the other thing supporting his treatment towards her was the fear of never seeing her again. “Elijah… I can’t love one Mikaelson and hate the rest. You have always been my big brother and you have looked out for me in every opportunity you came across. We’ve all made our mistakes. I’m not going to stand here and pretend that I’ve been perfect my entire life because I haven’t and I’ve never been. You guys are the only family I have left in this world and I can’t walk away from that,” she says sincerely. “You’ve always known about my bond with Klaus, I gathered that from the memory you showed me. But you seem to always neglect the bond I have with you.”

            Not giving him the chance to speak, she pulls him into her arms and hugs him tightly for what feels like the first time in forever. He is stiff for a long while, not entirely sure if he should move but then he’s wrapping his arms around her and burring into her shoulder.

            “We’re going to figure it out, Elijah. We have the rest of forever to do so.”

            She thumbs through the pages, reading the spells over and over again. She cannot count how many times she has done this and each time, she finds nothing new. It bothers her that Lyanna’s other grimoire is still out there but she has to believe that, with time, they will track it down. No other witch should have access to that kind of magic, especially when it ties directly back to Death and his poison. Sighing tiredly, she leans her head back onto Klaus’ bare chest and he hums softly, bringing his lips to the top of her head. His kiss is gentle and it brings her comfort, something she desperately needs tonight.

            “I don’t know why you continue to flip through her grimoire. Only spells for spring flowers and a full winter are written on those pages,” he says quietly into her hair.

            Elizabeth cranes her neck back to look at the man who holds her securely around her waist, a touch of a smile on her cheeks. “I think a part of me wants to hold onto her. The Lyanna I knew did spells for flowers, the Lyanna she became does spells for the sake of death,” she explains. “This grimoire is the last thing I have of her that reminds me of who she was before.”

            “Your family was beautiful,” Klaus compliments, although he is uncertain if he should have said anything at all. He cannot help but notice how much of her mother’s likeness she took in. They look almost identical in a way. They share the same eyes, which contrasts with Lyanna who shares her father’s blue eyes.

            “You would have liked my mother,” Elizabeth says. “She was gentle and she probably would have tried to feed you… she didn’t like the idea of people going hungry.”

            Klaus frowns, tightening his arms around her. “I’m sorry you lost her,” he says after a short while. “You’ve lost so much in your life.”

            Elizabeth shakes her head, thinking about how tragically ironic her life is. “It’s not your fault, Klaus,” she says with a light shrug. “If she never died, I may never have found my way to you. My life would have been completely different.”

            “You may have been better off for it…”

            She looks back on him, twisting his arms. “Maybe, but I’m okay with where my life has taken me. I have seen many things and I met many great people.”

            Klaus softens a bit and his eyes look between hers, his curiosity washing onto his face. “Do you ever miss your family?”

            “My family was touched by darkness,” she replies bleakly. “Contrary to popular belief, I much prefer the one I have now.”

            Klaus laughs quietly beneath her, flattening his hands against her stomach as he slips them under her shirt. Beneath the sheet, their legs tangle together. “As if this one is any better. You’re in a house full of killers and liars,” he says a little too warmly.

            Stretching, Elizabeth puts the grimoire and drawing onto the nightstand. Tearing from his hold slightly, she twists around and sits cross-legged in between his bent legs. She then grabs one of his hands and rests it on her open palm. There is something that she needs to talk to him about, something that is incredibly overdue and as she feels the topic on her tongue, her heartbeat quickens with anticipation.

            “Charles did horrible things to me while I was there,” she begins slowly. “He broke every bone in my body, cut every inch of me open… Sometimes he would do it for fun. Most nights, I would wonder what tomorrow would be like and then one day, I just stop caring. I knew that no matter what, the next day would be just as painful as the last. I was trapped and I became used to it. I accepted what my life had become when I should have kept fighting. I gave up.”

            Klaus tilts his head to the side, listening to her story closely. “As weak as you may have believed yourself to be, you are stronger than you realize. You never once shut off your humanity. You kept it alive because you were unwilling to give him the satisfaction of winning. Becoming used to the torture does not imply that you were weak. It says that you were strong because even through it all, you kept true to _strong_ yourself. I have never met another woman quite like you,” he says.

            Elizabeth meets his gaze and, in his eyes, she only sees the love he feels for her and the honesty he is trying to convey. He has come far in his growth and when she looks back on the man he used to be, she recognizes that they have become two completely different people. There were decades in which he simply refused to talk to her, times when he would slaughter entire villages, and years in which he would be so broken down he could hardly look at her. Those times are hardly existent now. This is the best he has ever been before. She feels secure with him and she hopes that, after everything they have been through together, he feels secure too. That is all she has ever wanted for him. For him to know that he is loved and cared for. For him to know that his past fears of abandonment are pointless when it comes to her love.

            “You truly do have a way with words, Niklaus,” she says in a hushed voice.

            Smiling, Klaus sits up from the pillows he was leaning against and he cups either side of her face between his hands gently. She is simply stunning sitting before him now in only her pajamas with her hair down and free of any pins. He could never grow tired of seeing her like this and, one day in their shared future, he hopes to see her like this without the weight of her past bleeding onto her consciousness.

            “It is true,” he agrees, smiling a little. “Rebekah often tells me I could talk my way out of hell if given the chance. However, with you, I see no reason to twist you around with my words. You _feel_ what I say and you know I mean well. You have always been that way. We’re bonded.”

            Elizabeth presses into the touch of his hands and she covers one of his with her own. “Why didn’t you kill me that night?” She then asks. Her voice barely resides above a whisper.

            Klaus thinks back on the first night he laid eyes upon her. He had been in the woods searching for a soul to feed on and instead he found Elizabeth Walker. It would have been so easy to kill the lost girl and yet, he hesitated. “I saw something in you that night. You had lost your way on the path and it was dark, Elijah had already found Lyanna not too far from where we stood,” he recalls. “You addressed me and when I showed you my true face, glowing eyes and all, you didn’t run away from me as so many had before,” he laughs, reminiscing. “Instead, you asked me which way town was and it occurred to me that you knew who I was. You knew I had the intentions of feeding on your blood and you showed me no fear.”

            “Your name had become pretty popular in my village before you burned it,” she explains with a laugh. “Everyone was terrified of Niklaus Mikaelson, even my father.”

            “Precisely. And even with the knowledge you possessed, you never tried to run,” he says. “You stood in the face of a monster and asked for direction. I chose not to kill you because you challenged me, whether you had meant to or not. You were not afraid of me and that was a rarity all by itself. It excited and intrigued me. Past that, it was your beauty that held me back. The Walker Sisters were almost as famous as my family had been. I wanted to have you all to myself.”

            Elizabeth grins, rolling her eyes at him. “So, it was my bravery and good looks that stopped you? Well, that is considerably less exciting than what Elijah lead me to believe.”

            Dropping his hands from her face, Klaus rests them upon her thighs and he makes sure to hold her gaze. “And now, I would like to know, after all this time, why you never ran.”

            Elizabeth gently traces a line from Klaus' chin to his sternum and she leaves her hand there, soon moving it to cover his beating heart. “I heard awful stories about you. I knew you were a monster and I knew I was supposed to fear you. However, when I saw you, I couldn’t see it. I was aware that it was you who had done those unspeakable acts, but all I could see when I first laid my eyes on you was your pain,” she explains. “I knew there was somebody else within you that you chose to bury. The person who loves and protects those he cherishes. And I knew that man wouldn’t hurt me. So, I went with my gut. I chose to address you.”

            Klaus is a little put off by the answer. He’s not sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t that. “I’m not sure if that makes you incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.”

            Elizabeth laughs, looking up to meet his eyes. “Some may say it makes me crazy. I am, after all, known for it. Elizabeth Walker is the tamer of the Mad Hybrid, the bringer of peace,” she says with an eye-roll. “I’m sure you’ve heard the names.”

            “My favorite is ‘Elizabeth Walker, the Hybrid Queen’,” he says, laughing as well.

            Making a repulsed face, she shakes her head. “That can’t be one, is it?” She giggles. “I’m not even a hybrid. I’m just in love with one.”

            “That you are,” he muses.

            Leaning forward, Klaus captures her lips and pulls her as close to his body as she can get. Elizabeth makes a surprised sound and slowly her eyes close, her hand slipping into his messy hair. It feels good to have him against her and although she would like to stay like this, she can’t let herself get lost in him. Not right now, at least. Stopping herself slowly, she pulls back and when he looks to her with worry, worried that he has done something wrong, she takes both of his hands.

            “Klaus… There’s something that I have to do,” she says quietly.

            “What is it, my love?”

            Taking in a shaky deep breath, she tries to find the strength within herself to do this. She is not the pebble in her cell anymore. She’s strong and she _can_ do this even though her mind is screaming at her not to. “I want you to look into my mind,” she says. “I know… I know you love me and if we’re going to do this – be together, I mean – then you need to know what I went through. You need to see my trauma and understand what Charles did to me.”

            That was not what he was expecting. Sitting up, he angles her face up so he can look into her eyes. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

            Elizabeth takes his hands again and she places them on either side of her head. “I need to do this. I want you to know and… I-I need it. I don’t want to suffer alone anymore.”

            And as she takes one last deep breath, he enters her mind. At first, it is painful as he travels back to the day she was taken away and she whimpers, digging her fingers into his thighs. With each passing second, it grows easier until he is able to look at everything that had happened to her in the decade she was not by his side. He listens closely to every taunt, to each of her screams, and he watches every time Charles lays a finger upon her. He travels through her memories, pulling everything apart. He visits her darkest hours and he finds himself crying when he watches her lose every ounce of hope she had possessed. And as he feels her pain, his tears begin to slip down his cheeks. It’s unimaginable. She felt so alone and he feels that now… he understands.

            In the end, he draws back and drops his hands from her head. For a while, she sits there with her eyes closed as she cries softly. With a hand that trembles with uncertainty, he reaches out to her and uses his thumb to brush away some of her fallen tears. Opening her eyes again, she sees the conflicting anger and pain that he looks back at her with. Taking in a shaky breath, she wipes her tears away and finds the strength within herself to get past this.

            “Now you know,” she says, voice breaking.

            As his emotions go to war with themselves in his head, as they blend together and become something entirely new, he forces the anger down. It’s not what she needs right now. “I am so terribly sorry,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

            “It’s not your fault,” she says, a delicate smile on her lips. “None of it is your fault.”

            Unable to find the strength inside of himself to say something else, he pulls her forward and wraps his arms around her securely. He holds the back of her head as she rests it on his chest, above his heart. They say nothing for the rest of the night, only laying in each other’s arms as they cope with all that has happened.

            Lyanna stares at the stone wall in front of her, taking in the many carvings and sigils that she has spent centuries deciphering. She runs her fingertips along with it, touching each spell that she passes by. On the other side, she can feel his magic and the power he gives her. She can almost taste his freedom, but he is hostile and has grown impatient. At the door she still cannot open, she drops down to her knees and stares at the final three sigils, admiring them almost. His freedom is so close that she can almost taste it in the damp air. With uncertainty, she extends her right hand out and she presses her palm flat against the stone. He is upset with her.

            “I won’t fail you…” She says quietly, her eyes glowing brilliantly red as she channels him. “I’m down to the final locks. You will be free within the next four months.”

            The energy shifts then and she hisses in pain when it burns her hand, but she can’t pull away. Her hand has been fused to the door, stuck there until their conversation is complete. What she mistook for anger is actually bloodlust and he will stop at nothing to get it. Hanging her head, she nods. Of course, she should have known. He wants Elizabeth Walker killed.

            “You don’t understand. I cannot kill my sister. She is my equal. Long ago, our mother… Yes, I understand… Should I try to kill her, I will not be unable to set you free,” she says, communicating with him. “I understand.”

            When she is able to pull her hand away, she tries to shake the pain away from it unsuccessfully. From behind, she begins to hear footsteps entering the cave and she looks over her shoulder, rolling her eyes at who she finds. _Cockroach_. 

            “They haven’t killed you yet? How is that possible?” She asks, standing.

            Charles makes a face, having no tolerance for her attitude towards him. “It would seem that you have taken most of their attention. They will not come from me until they have stopped you.”

            Lyanna rolls her eyes and turns to face her father. “He wants Elizabeth killed. You nor I can kill her permanently. What are your suggestions?”

            “Emilia was thorough. She sensed my power long before we brought either of you into the world,” Charles sighs. “When you were born, she felt that same power within you. It terrified her... she knew you were stronger. And then Elizabeth was born and she knew she was different. She used that to her advantage. She protected your sister and even in the grave, she continues to do so. There is nothing that can be done about it.”

            Lyanna’s fast twists up in anger. “Nothing? He will not take that as an answer, Charles. He wants her dead. Surely there must be something we can do.”

            “No, Lyanna. There’s nothing. Your sister cannot die by our hands and you may play as many games with the Mikaelsons as you please, but her bonds with them are too strong. They will continue to push their way through your magic. They will _never_ be the hands that kill her.”

            “You don’t understand,” Lyanna snarls. “He will not let me rest until my work is done and he is set free. Allowing Elizabeth to live will not go over lightly. He will be furious if she succeeds in stopping me. I will not get a second chance.”

            “Finish your work, Lyanna. One way or another, we will all die,” Charles says and long before Lyanna can say anything more, he is walking away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Tomorrow morning, I will be having the surgery I mentioned a little bit ago and will be unable to upload for a few days and possibly not until next week. Hopefully, this is enough to get you guys through. I'll see you soon! :)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	27. For What We Fight For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Determined to figure out why Lyanna cannot kill her, Elizabeth digs through her early memories and ends up uncovering something she thought she never would.

The sounds of pencils snapping and cursing grabs her immediate attention.

            She pulls her zip-up hoodie on as she walks down the empty hall, her boots thudding dully against the old hardwood floors. As she continues to listen in on the noises she’s picking up on, she hears chatter and the sounds of pages being torn from spiral notebooks. Curiously, she opens the doors to the study and peers inside to discover a scene in which she was not expecting to find. In fact, what she finds is almost astonishing. She’s almost positive the study didn’t look this way when she left for her errand this morning. Stray papers are scattered on every available surface – even on select parts of the floor – and various members of her family are so deeply lost in their research that they hardly notice her standing there in shock. Raising an eyebrow, she leans against the door-frame, patiently waiting and observing.

            “Rebekah, where is the page on Lyanna’s early childhood history?” Freya asks, carefully stepping over her poorly stacked books. “I need it to verify some things relating to Charles.”

            Rebekah pokes her head up from behind the old couch, holding the folded page up in the air. “Had to borrow it,” she says.

            Freya all but jumps over the coffee table, reaching to snatch the paper back from her sister. Wobbling, she stands wide over another stack of papers and takes the pencil out from behind her ear. As she begins to scribble, Elizabeth shifts her gaze over to Elijah who has Hayley on a facetime call. They’re currently plowing through to enormous books that look to be as old as Elijah himself. They speak quietly to each other, exchanging information in tandem. Looking over at the last person in the room, she lands on Klaus who ducks his head out of the way as a notebook sails through the air. He glares heatedly at Freya, jabbing his pencil in her direction threateningly.

            “Do that one more time,” he snaps, angrily. “I dare you.”

            Freya rolls her eyes and turns away, finally noticing the vampire standing in the entrance of the room whose face has twisted up into something of amusement. “Oh, there you are!” She says excitedly. “We have a lot to talk about.”

            Entering in what might as well be considered a war zone, Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest and carefully navigates through the field of papers. “Do I dare ask what’s happening in here? I was only gone for the morning.”

            “We’re finalizing the plan. It’s a lot to organize,” she explains with an exhausted sigh. “We’ve been at it since you left with Kol. Did you get the dagger?”

            Reaching into her jacket, she pulls out the weighted silver dagger and holds it up. “I have my sister’s murder weapon. We also grabbed the sibling daggers just in case. Kol has them. He and Davina are figuring out what they do. Some of then weren’t marked.”

            Freya takes the dagger from her and jumps over a stack of water damaged books to get to her designated station beside the unlit fireplace. She drops down to her knees on the cool tiles and Elizabeth does the same, looking at all of her notes that she has scattered about.

            “I think we figured out where Lyanna is going to be in a couple of days during the new moon,” Freya says happily, almost relieved. “I’ve been doing a lot of research on Death and his tomb. From what I can tell, there’s a lock that has to be broken the night we have to kill her. She can’t do it until the moon is at its apex.”

            Elizabeth laughs lightly, giving the dagger an uncomfortable look. “That’s stupidly convenient.”

            “Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing, Liz. We needed a break and this is it,” Freya says, running a hand down her face. The bags under her eyes have become so dark that she almost looks like a zombie. “I did some digging into the altar that the first massacre happened by and according to some of the older witches around here, it used to be an altar of some sort that devil worshipers used centuries ago. They thought they were talking to Satan. Only, it wasn’t and it was actually Death. Lyanna will be there to break one of the locks.”

            “Yes, because we all know where Satan really is,” Rebekah calls over the chatter. “He’s sitting on the couch.”

            Klaus smiles as he continues to read, totally agreeing with the statement. Elizabeth shakes her head, turning back to Freya who eagerly grabs for her coffee and resumes her ramblings. When was the last time she slept for more than an hour?

            “When the moon reaches its highest point, you will use the dagger and plunge it into her heart,” she continues warily. “Unfortunately, that’s the easy part.”

            “Because murdering my evil witch of a sister is so easy,” Elizabeth says sarcastically with a shaky, anxious laugh.

            “The hard part will be getting close enough to her so you can. Lyanna is probably going to lose it once she sees you because she’ll know then that we figured out her full plan. She’s going to try and attack you,” Freya explains, rubbing the back of her neck as it has grown tense. “We know she can’t actually kill you, but if she snaps your neck… we could miss our one window.”

            From the opened doors of the study, Nathan walks in and takes a seat right beside Freya. In his hands, he holds an old book and he passes it to her, smiling happily at Elizabeth. Today, he wears a dark gray T-shirt and some new blue jeans, which strikes her as familiar. Looking over her shoulder, she realizes that Klaus is wearing something almost identical. Instead of a gray T-shirt, he wears a gray long-sleeve. She giggles at the comparison, shaking her head.

            “How are you holding up today, Liz?” Nathan asks, getting her attention again.

            Elizabeth shrugs her shoulders lightly and although she has about a million and one things to say that have been crowding her mind, she is glad to see that Nathan is handling vampirism well. “I’m alright all things considered,” she lies smoothly. Turning her attention back to Freya, she tunes out all of the chatter around her. She needs to focus. "So how do we protect me for long enough to get the job done?"

            "Nathan actually came up with a solid idea last night over dinner with Keelin and me," Freya says, gesturing.

            "Well, Freya was telling me about how she used your necklace as a blockade to prevent Charles from getting into your head, so I asked her if it would be possible to use it as a shield of some sort to deflect Lyanna's magic," he explains.

            Surprised, Elizabeth raises both eyebrows and touches her locket. "Will that work?" She asks Freya.

            "It's going to be tricky and it's going to require a lot of magic. I spoke with Davina and we think that if we draw power from Kol and the moon, we can conjure enough magic to keep you protected," Freya says.

            Widening her eyes, Elizabeth straightens her posture in her surprise. "You're going to use Kol? Is... Is he okay with that?"

            "Not really, but we don't have much choice. Klaus and Elijah will be watching you to make sure nothing goes wrong and Rebekah will be keeping an eye on the rest of us to make sure none of Charles' human hybrids show up," she says with a sigh. "Cami and Josh will be staying behind to protect everyone here. Kol is the only one left with enough power for us to draw on."

"And I will be there in case anything happens to you," Nathan then adds on. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of it, but Charles is our dad which makes me your half-brother. If she snaps your neck or if something happens, then I'll step up and finish the job. I should be able to kill Lyanna too."

            "But nothing is going to happen to you, Elizabeth," Elijah says, cutting into their conversation almost loudly. The chatter in the room silences almost immediately and all eyes flicker to the man at the desk. "I believe I made a promise to you months ago. When this is over, we are going to take everything from Charles and destroy all of his work."

            Elizabeth slowly stands to her feet and turns to face Elijah, but she quickly finds herself having to turn to Klaus as he is next to speak.

            "And I promised to deliver you the heads of those who harmed you, so... If you don’t mind, we'd appreciate it if you didn't get yourself killed again."

            Freya looks between the brother’s, pressing her lips together in a thin line. “There’s a lot riding on this Elizabeth. I can’t be certain because I don’t have Lyanna’s personal plans, but there can’t be many locks left on Death’s tomb. If he breaks free, we all lose. You can’t have second thoughts or back out of this. We only have this one shot.”

            Elizabeth nods her head, looking down at her feet. It still makes her uncomfortable to think about what she will have to do in a few days. She would love to figure out a way to save Lyanna, but this is no longer about what she wants. From the beginning, this has always been about the tragedies in her life that tore apart her family in every aspect possible. Lyanna has to be killed for not only their safety, but for hers as well. She’s a danger and she’s one that must be stopped before she can release Death and kill them all.

            “I won’t back out,” she says confidently, her voice sounding thick. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now. Lyanna can’t be allowed to live. Stopping her is our only option and I’ll make sure we finish this for good.”

            And she means what she says. After all that has happened, she has to. There’s no more time to find alternative plans and Lyanna has caused too much damage already. Nathan? Davina? Marcel? Kol? She can’t afford to risk anyone else. As soon as her sister is handled, she’ll go on to take apart Charles’ work and she will fulfill the promises she made to him. There will be nothing left of Charles Richardson once she is done with him and all of the people that he still holds captive will be set free. She owes it to them to do this right and even though it's killing her on the inside, this is what she has to do.

            She lies painfully still on her bed, her eyes closed tightly with her arm thrown over them for good measure. There are still a thousand questions burning a hole in her mind. _She has a power inside of her, Niklaus. I am quite positive you felt it within her the day you found her. That power intrigues me._ What did Thomas mean by that? She wasn’t terribly old when he was around and although she may be old now, she has never felt different from the others. She crosses her legs, looking for any possible answers. Out of all of the answers that she has, why doesn’t she have the answer to this? Sighing, she gives up and props herself up on her elbows. Klaus is stretched out beside her and he’s drawing, somethings she has noticed him doing a lot more frequently lately. It seems he has decided to make her his muse again.

            “Klaus, I have to talk to you about something important,” Elizabeth says, sitting up so she can cross her legs.

            “I’m starting to really hate it when you say that,” he sighs, closing his sketchbook for the time being.

            Ignoring his agitation, she grabs his hand and pulls it into her lap as she tries to sort her thoughts out. There has to be a logical explanation behind this. “We all know that Lyanna cannot kill me directly. There’s something within me that makes it impossible for her. When Kol killed my mother, she said that she needed to stay alive and it wasn’t her pleading for her life. It was her saying that if she died, something would change. And then in the memory, I saw with you and Thomas, he said there was a power inside me and that he was intrigued by it. He also said you felt that power too,” she says. “I had no idea Thomas was obsessed with me until I saw that memory. He was fixated on the power he claimed I have. I can’t practice magic… and…”

            “You want to know what he was talking about,” Klaus states correctly and when Elizabeth nods her head anxiously, he takes in a deep breath. He has long wondered when this conversation would come up. “What Thomas said is quite true. There is something inside of you that is different from the rest of us and different from any other vampire I have met before. Everyone in our family can feel it, but I’ve always been able to feel it the most. You’re different and for as long as I have known you, I have been trying to figure out why,” he explains, going back through the past five-hundred years. “When Freya met you, she asked me about it. She said that she felt something pure inside of you. I’ve always told you that you are a special woman, Elizabeth. I meant that. You are truly different.”

            “So, you have no idea what that power is then?” She asks, defeated. “Klaus, I… I know it in my gut that whatever power I have inside me is the reason why Lyanna cannot kill me. There’s gotta be a way we can figure out what it is. Something was done to me or maybe I was born with it. I don’t know. Before I turned, I had the potential to become a Walker Witch. Do you think it has something to do with my family’s magic?”

            Klaus shakes his head, dismissing the thought. “No, I’ve felt the magic that comes from your family. It’s dark and tortured. Whatever is inside of you is pure. It feels… clean. And I believe that with the bonds you form with people, that power grows stronger. I suppose that’s why I feel it the most. You are the closest to me and our bond keeps us linked to each other,” he says, interlacing their hands together. “Your power has always reached out to me.”

            She thinks for a long minute about what he said, trying to see all of the possible reasons behind it. Vampires, with a few obvious exceptions, are not supposed to have powers beyond that of which they are given when they turn. “Did you feel the power in me when we first met?”

            “Oh, yes. It was quite faint then, but I knew it was there and it grew to be exceptionally potent within days of me looking after you and Lyanna. When you turned two years later, it was almost blinding.”

            “Then whatever was done to me happened while I was still a human,” she thinks out loud, cooking up several ideas. “Klaus, it might be crazy… but I think my mother did something to me before she died.”

            “I wouldn’t call it crazy. From what you’ve told me, your mother always looked out for you and maybe she knew what kind of darkness followed Lyanna and Charles,” he says lightly. “Is there a way we can prove it?”

            “I don’t know. My memories maybe,” she says wearily. “I can’t remember a lot of my childhood and it has nothing to do with me being as old as I am. Even before I turned, I had a hard time recalling things. My mother never practiced magic, but now I’m starting to question that.”

            Klaus rests his head back against her pillows and contemplates the odd possibility. “What was your mother’s name before she married?”

            “Eston.”

            _Well, that certainly clears things up_. “That would have been nice to know five centuries ago,” he grumbles irritably. “Come on, we’re going to Freya.”

            Klaus gets up from the bed and he tries to pull Elizabeth along, but she resists. “Hang on. Freya hasn’t been sleeping, Klaus. I don’t want to bug her. Can’t we go to another witch?”

            “The only other witch we have available to us right now is Davina and she can hardly light a candle on fire at the moment,” he reminds her. “Freya is all we have. If you want the answers to your questions, then we must use her.”

            Although she is reluctant, she forces herself from the bed and follows Klaus out into the hallway. It’s late at night and hardly anyone is awake, but the sounds coming from the living room would suggest that somebody is still up. Together, they walk hand in hand down there and poke their head inside to find Freya pacing back and force by the flickering fireplace. In her hands, she holds her grimoire and she’s flipping through the pages furiously, looking for whatever spell she needs. Elizabeth uneasily clears her throat and Freya looks to them, a deep frown forming on her lips.

            “I don’t like that look,” she says, closing the grimoire.

            Elizabeth sighs and pulls away from Klaus’ hand, moving to plop down on the creaky couch. “My mother may have been a witch and she is probably the reason behind why Lyanna can’t kill me directly.”

            “There’s no doubt about it,” Klaus corrects. “If your mother’s maiden name was Eston, then she was most definitely a witch and a powerful one at that.”

            Freya’s eyes widen briefly and she sets her grimoire down on the coffee table, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your mother was an Eston witch? Why didn’t you say anything?”

            Becoming incredibly confused, Elizabeth frowns. “Up until now, I didn’t even know that was a thing. I would have mentioned it if I knew. I always assumed the magic that my family had come from my father.”

            “If your mother was truly an Eston, then she was most likely an extremely powerful witch and she probably hid it. Eston witches were slaughtered in the 1400s by vampires because they possessed the power of Precognition. It’s the ability to have foreknowledge of an event,” Freya explains. “Their magic was known to be pure.”

            A rock drops in her stomach as she slowly puts it together in her head. “I had no idea,” Elizabeth mutters, dropping her head into her hands.

            “Parts of Elizabeth’s childhood have been lost to her and she believes Emilia may have done something to her to protect her from Lyanna,” Klaus goes on to say impatiently. “We were wondering if you could help us poke around in her head to find the answers.”

            Everything about Freya’s appearance would suggest that she’s running on fumes and Elizabeth can sense that she is. She can see it in her stressed eyes and in how messy her hair is. Still, she nods her head in agreement.

            “We need to know everything we can before we try and kill Lyanna. If your mother was an Eston witch and if she potentially blocked out some of your memories – and they weren’t lost to your trauma – then it would be better if we unlock them now,” she says. “I have to warn you, Liz. It’s going to be painful. I can take all three of us into your mind channeling Klaus’ power and if we go back far enough, I think we can do this.”

            Elizabeth sighs, looking down at her palms. “Can’t hurt too much more than having your spleen ripped out while being wide awake,” she jokes darkly, knowing exactly what that feels like.

            Freya takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table and she flips through her grimoire, settling on a specific spell. She then holds her hands out to them and they take them, holding onto her tightly. Freya closes her eyes and she relaxes her body as she starts the first Latin incantation. Immediately Elizabeth groans as an unpleasant pain erupts in the back of her head and she wants to pull away from the circle, but she forces herself to stay put. Moments from her life begin to flash past them and it makes her feel dizzy, almost as if her core of balance has been torn out from within her. Gasping, she is alarmed when the pain becomes so blinding that she can hardly breathe. Clutching tightly onto Klaus’ hand with an inhuman strength, she tries to focus herself on the memories she is looking for.

            “Breathe, Elizabeth,” Klaus urges. “You’re alright.”

            Sobbing, she keeps her eyes tightly sealed and it is only a matter of seconds before they are being sling shot into her head and they arrive in a memory. Elizabeth stumbles back, looking around at the farm she grew up on. Her hands are shaking and she’s taking in gasps of air almost as if she has never breathed before. Klaus comes to her side and pushes her hair out of her face, watching her eyes until she calms down. Freya looks around and down at the tall grass they stand in, trying to pinpoint when they are. Then, she hears the loud cries of a baby and Elizabeth snaps her head to the cabin.

            “I think… that’s me…? Or Lyanna?” Elizabeth pants, struggling to understand. “How are we out here when I’m in there?”

            “I’m channeling the power inside of you as well. I think we’re experiencing parts of Emilia’s memories too. I’m not sure. The spell is incredibly complex. We’re seeing parts of your mind that you have never had access to,” Freya says, walking towards the cabin fearlessly.

            Following the eldest Mikaelson, Elizabeth pulls Klaus along and they slip right into the cabin where Emilia is laid on the ground with a newborn baby in her arms. Elizabeth looks around, searching for her father or Lyanna, and she finds neither. Emilia hugs her child close and laughs breathlessly, kissing her tiny head as she screams.

            “Hello, sweet thing,” she whispers tiredly, reaching for a small blanket.

            Drawing her eyebrows together, Elizabeth edges closer to her mother and watches as she bundles the baby up and eases herself to rest against the wall. Had she been forced to give birth on her own? Emilia strokes her baby’s face and she smiles down on her, kissing her when the baby wraps her tiny hand around her mother’s finger.

            “You’re a strong little one,” Emilia says. “You’re not like your sister… Oh, my sweet Elizabeth. You’ve got a long future ahead of you…”

            Klaus gently rests his hand against Elizabeth’s lower back as they continue to watch the memory in front of them, taking in the scene for what it is. Freya looks around the cabin and searches for any clues but comes up empty.

            “This isn’t the right place,” Freya assesses. “I’m afraid we won’t get the answers we’re looking for unless we channel Emilia only. Your memories and trauma are confusing the spell. It doesn’t know where to take us.”

            Elizabeth frowns, turning to the witch. “So, channel the power. If it was my mother’s magic, it’s a direct organic link to her. You should be able to use it to channel her.”

            Freya nods and puts her hands on either of Elizabeth’s shoulders, shutting her eyes once more. She starts the spell again and Elizabeth reaches out to Klaus, taking his hand securely so he doesn’t get left behind. As the spell progresses, Elizabeth begins to feel a warmth inside of her and she reminds herself to breathe, working herself through the pain that burns in her head. The room around them begins to move, going forward in time by four years. When Freya jerks back, Emilia is sat at the table and she’s staring at a little girl with brown eyes and messy hair who plays on the floor with her little wooden toys. Elizabeth immediately recognizes the little girl as herself at four years of age.

            “Momma, why do you look upset?” She asks, pushing herself up onto her tiny knees.

            Emilia smiles a little and flinches when a loud clap of thunder shakes the cabin. “Momma is worried, my love. You’re not safe.”

            Klaus turns to the Elizabeth he knows and she scrunches her face up, racking her brain for the memory of this day. “I don’t remember this.”

            “We’re on the right track, then,” Freya says mostly to herself.

            The little Elizabeth picks up her toy horse and she waddles over to her mother, reaching to put it on the table. “Why am I not safe?”

            “It’s hard to explain, little bug,” Emilia sighs and her face quickly turns into shock when the door bursts open and in comes William Walker, who Elizabeth has come to know as Charles… her father.

            William looks between the girls with distaste on his face, shutting the door aggressively behind him. “What is she still doing up? Where is Lyanna?”

            “I was just about to put her to bed,” Emilia explains, hoisting Elizabeth into her arms and onto her lap. “Lyanna is in the back room studying her spells.”

            William grunts and walks promptly out of the room, no longer interested in them. The young Elizabeth twists around to her mother and she puts her small hand on the side of her face, a tiny frown on her cheeks.

            “I don’t like papa,” she says in a quiet voice.

            “Momma will protect you, my love,” Emilia reassures.

            The memory shifts then, but something goes terribly wrong almost immediately. Freya makes a face of concern as she begins to sense it and Elizabeth doubles over in excruciating pain, clutching her head as she screams on the top of her lungs. Klaus comes to her side in panic, unsure of what is happening to her. Powerful winds begin to rip through the cabin and everything starts to fade out as if it were sand being blown away. This magic is not of their own.

            “Freya, what the bloody hell are you doing?” He yells loudly over the deafening sounds of destruction.

            “This isn’t me!” She yells back. “Something is pulling us! Something is challenging my magic!”

            Elizabeth weeps and falls against Klaus, no longer able to hold herself up. Her knees give out and she feels herself crying, but she cannot stop herself. Everything feels as if it were set on fire. Klaus holds her and tries his best to work her through the pain, but nothing can be done. Fearfully, she looks down at her hands as they start to turn gray with desiccation. Panic begins to course through Klaus’ veins and he takes her hands, trying to see what’s happening to her for himself.

            “Freya! What’s happening to her?”

            Freya struggles to come to their side, using her magic to fight the magic that tugs on them. “I don’t… I don’t understand. This shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t me.”

            All at once, everything dies out and Elizabeth drops to the ground, panting raggedly. Klaus falls with her in support and it occurs to him that they are no longer standing in the cabin, but in a field. He rubs Elizabeth’s back and pulls her hair away, watching as the desiccation fades and her skin returns to her natural color. Freya turns and looks around in confusion, trying to understand where they have been brought to. She has never felt something quite that powerful before and that’s saying a lot given all that she has been through in her long life. All the way across the field, a woman stands with her back to them at the edge of the river.

            “Look,” Freya says, pointing.

            Elizabeth weakly lifts her head and she wipes the blood away that had leaked out from her mouth, struggling to get her vision to stabilize. “W-What is that?”

            “Come on,” Freya urges.

            Knowing that she cannot walk on her own just yet, Klaus helps Elizabeth to her feet and together the three of them cross the field to the bank of the river. The woman keeps her back to them and when Freya walks around her to see the woman’s face, her eyebrows raise in shock.

            “Oh my god,” she says, bringing a hand to her mouth.

            “Who the bloody hell is it?” Klaus asks irritably.

            The woman turns then with a faint smile on her face, shocking Elizabeth to her core. “I’m terribly sorry for the pain you endured to come here, my love,” Emilia says. “I knew you would come looking for your memories one day and I’m sorry to say I cannot give them back to you, but I can help you understand.”

            Although she is still much too weak, Elizabeth pulls away from Klaus and stumbles uneasily to her mother, stopping halfway. “How are you here right now? You… you died.”

            “My body is dead, sweetheart. However, I am an Eston witch and I do have many talents. My soul remains alive,” Emilia explains.

            “Of course,” Freya exclaims quietly. “You created a pocket. You knew that you would die one day and you needed to ensure you could still protect Elizabeth beyond the grave.”

            Emilia nods proudly. “You would be correct, Freya.”

            Elizabeth scrunches her face up in confusion, trying to understand what exactly is happening here. Is she dreaming? “You know who these people are?”

            “I’ve been watching over you since I died, my little one. This woman is Freya Mikaelson and the man who stands protectively beside you is Niklaus Mikaelson, the Original Hybrid and the man who loves you more than you could ever know.”

            Elizabeth and Klaus share a brief look, trying to decipher what it is exactly they are bearing witness to. Emilia watches them with a smile on her face, having long dreamed of this day. She never got the proper chance to say goodbye to her daughter and now she has been given that chance. It feels like a fairy-tale to her.

            “I don’t understand…” Elizabeth admits. “You’ve been here this entire time? Watching over me?”

            “Elizabeth, I know you have a lot of questions but we don’t have that much time. This place is only meant to harbor one soul, not four,” Emilia quickly explains. “You started digging through our memories because you have questions about the power inside of you. You want to know why Lyanna cannot kill you.”

            Elizabeth nods eagerly, swaying a bit. “If you’ve been watching over me, then you know what I have to do in a few days.”

            “Soon after Lyanna was born, I felt the darkness inside of her. She had inherited your father’s magic and it had festered inside of her. It turned into something horrible and when I felt it, it terrified me. Her magic was unnatural and I had no idea what it was linked to. When you were born, I could feel that you were different. Unlike Lyanna, you inherited my line of magic and a touch of your father’s,” Emilia explains, filling in the gaps. “The reason why I never revealed my magic to anyone is that I am more than just a witch. I can see fragments of the future, but it constantly changes. I knew that unless I did something to protect you, Lyanna would overpower all of us and succeed in what she is doing now.”

            “You put a spell on her,” Freya states, connecting the dots.

            Emilia nods. “I did and it cost me most of my talents. It was an old charm my coven had used to protect one another in times of dire trouble. I put it on you in hopes that it would be powerful enough to protect you from Lyanna and your father.”

            Elizabeth draws her eyebrows together. “ _And_ my father? He can’t kill me either?”

            “No. Neither have been able to kill you since you were four years old and neither will be able to for as long as my soul remains alive here. The charm protects you from the twisted magic your father and sister practiced long ago. Your father no longer has access to his magic, but obviously Lyanna does and should she kill you, she will lose her magic as well. I made sure that you are completely protected against them at a great cost of my own. You need to know that you and Lyanna have always equal. The magic inside of you challenges the magic inside of hers. It’s a dangerous combination. It’s part of the reason why I made sure you never practiced as a small child. You’re stronger as the creature you are now.”

            Klaus walks up to them and pulls Elizabeth against him as she continues to struggle with standing upright. She needs blood. “And what of her bonds with people she meets? She and I are linked. Why is that?”

            “The charm feeds on positive bonds to grow stronger. When she met you, she made her first real bond and it became permanent when she fell in love with you and turned. Because you can never die, along with most of your family, the spell I put upon her is indefinite. The spell can be removed, but only after Lyanna and Charles are dead and she is safe,” Emilia says, folding her hands together in front of her. “Elizabeth, you have suffered a great deal in your long life and for that, I am terribly sorry. You have the chance to end your suffering and I want you to take it, no matter the cost. Do not hesitate when you get the chance.”

            “Is there no way to save Lyanna?” Elizabeth asks helplessly, still holding onto her last shred of hope.

            Emilia looks down, saddened by the question. “Freya has told you before, sweetheart. Lyanna gave her soul to Death. There is nothing left of her to save. I did what I could to protect you. You need to use the opportunities you have to repair your life. It will be alright eventually, my Elizabeth.”

            Elizabeth feels tears welling up in her eyes. She can hardly believe she is having a real conversation with her mother after all this time. She had forgotten what she sounded like. “How can you know everything will be okay?”

            Emilia steps forward and puts her delicate hands on either side of her daughter’s face, wiping her warm tears away. “Because I’ve seen it. Things may never be perfect and troubles will always arise, but it will all eventually be okay in the end. You are strong and I know you will overcome any struggles that come your way. However, you _must_ handle Lyanna.”

            Taking in a deep breath, Elizabeth nods. She’s still not sure how she feels, but she trusts that one way or another, her life will be set back on the right course. “Thank you, momma.”

            “Never lose hope. You are _so_ strong. I’ll always watch over you,” she says strongly.

            Elizabeth launches herself forward and pulls her mother into a tight hug, having missed her hold. She squeezes her eyes shut and works hard to memorize how this feels, never wanting to let the feeling go. When she opens her eyes again, she is sat back in her living room and she jolts forward, taking in a sharp breath. Everything is hazy around her and the room feels like it’s moving, but that’s not the case. Taking in a deep breath, she rests her head in her hands and cries silently as she processes all that she has learned and witnessed. Klaus awakens next, soon followed by Freya, and they watch her with worried expressions.

            “Are you alright, love?” Klaus asks, lightly touching her back.

            Elizabeth sniffles and pushes her hair back as she straightens up, locking her emotions up. “It’s not what I expected, but… I have closure now.”

            Wordlessly, she stands from the couch and decides that she needs to get away from things for a little while. She leaves the room without saying anything more and she hugs her arms around herself, trying to clear her head. Her life has always been complicated, but it eases her consciousness to know that she has always been protected. In a few days, she will stop Lyanna and with her death, everything will go back to how it’s supposed to be. She’s going to be okay. For a little while, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is a biiiggg chapter. Very Lyanna and Elizabeth heavy. Sorry I'm a little slow on uploads lately. Between having surgery, having a hard time with recovery, starting my next year at college, annndd getting a REALLY bad cold that I'm still dealing with... I've been a little busy. I'll hopefully be back on schedule in a few days. 
> 
> This story is wrapping up soon, guys! There are only 8 chapters left of the core story, then there will be 2 chapters that jump a bit into the future and 2 chapters that go into the past (for example, the night Klaus and Elizabeth met). Past that, there will be 1 final note from me and then the sequel will be up! I'm so excited for it. The sequel is considerably darker than this one, which really surprised me. Lots of death. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos :)


	28. Her Sister's Keeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day has come and Elizabeth must risk everything to stop Lyanna for once and for all.

The birds chirping peacefully outside of her window pulls her from her sleep.

            She slowly opens her tired eyes and blinks twice to adjust to the bright sunlight that shines down on her warmly. She rests on her side with her arm tucked underneath her pillow. Around her middle is another arm and it holds her close to her lover’s body. She listens carefully to his steady heartbeat and his slow breathing, willing herself to stay in this peaceful moment for as long as she can. In his arms, she always feels the safest. She knows he would do anything to protect her, to love her, to support her. As she presses back further against him, she comes to the sad realization that she doesn’t have to look at the calendar to know what the date is today. This very day has been coming for months and now it’s finally here. She thinks it’s odd how calm she feels when she knows what she will have to do by the time night arrives.

            Taking in a deep breath, she catches his wonderful scent and the subtle smell of pancakes coming from the kitchen. Although she would much rather stay in bed in his arms, she gently unwraps him from her body and slips out from underneath her shared comforter. She looks back at him and smiles slightly, appreciating how he looks. He’s on his back now with his head still on her pillow and he’s shirtless, completely vulnerable to her. It’s beautiful. Turning away, her bare feet pad to the bathroom where she quietly clicks the bathroom door shut and turns on her shower. She doesn’t spend too much time in there even though the warmth on her skin feels nice. No, she cannot give her mind the time it needs to creep up on her. Not today. Wrapping a towel around her wet body, she runs her brush through her hair over and over until it’s free of any remaining tangles. From her closet, she pulls out a simple outfit, blue skinny jeans and a matching dark red sweater. And after she is dressed, she walks back to her bed and leaves a ghost of a kiss on his cheek, gently running her hand through his chaotic hair.

            At the mouth of the dining room, she finds those of her family who are awake for the first wave of served breakfast. They look to her and don’t say a word, having nothing to say that would mean much. Their apologies and wishes have lost their effect by now. Taking a seat at the table, she grabs for one of the plates that are offered to her and she pulls it onto her place-mat. She looks down at the pancakes, poking at one of them with her fork mindlessly. Cutting a piece off, she pops it into her mouth and chews slowly as she wraps her hand around the warm cup of coffee that was placed in front of her. She has never been much of a coffee drinker – for much of her life, she has always preferred tea – but the concept of it seems appealing to her today. Bringing the cup to her lips, she takes a slow slip and admires how warm it is in her chest when she swallows. And as the next face walks into the dining room, she kisses her silent morning goodbye.

            “You could have woken me up,” Klaus says, taking his spot at the head of the table beside her.

            Elizabeth doesn’t look to him. Instead, she cuts off another piece of her pancake carefully with the edge of her fork. “I thought you could use a few more minutes. You were up late last night.”

            “Not on a day like today, love,” Klaus sighs as he asks the passing waiting staff for something to curb his blood cravings.

            “Niklaus,” Elijah says as he lowers his cup of coffee down. “Let’s refrain from mentioning what’s on the agenda today until breakfast is over. I’m sure Elizabeth would appreciate some peace.”

            Elizabeth presses her lips together in a thin line as she pushes her scrambled eggs around, trying to decide if she really wants to eat or not. Drinking blood would suffice enough, but this could very well be the last breakfast that she gets to have. Deciding that she needs all of the energy that she can possibly get, she forces herself to choke down the eggs regardless of her conflicting thoughts. When the waiting staff comes by with Klaus' glass of blood, they also leave glasses for everyone else at the table. Elizabeth grabs for hers, feeling the warmth against her hand. Slowly, she sips on it and watches as Freya walks into the room carrying her notebook. She plops down in the spot beside Elijah, who sits across from Elizabeth. She looks tired and worn out, but there is no more time for resting.

            “Good morning,” Freya greets warmly, yawning as she snatches Klaus’ untouched coffee. He glares at her. “We need to talk about what the anchor is going to be for Death’s tomb. It will have to be something incredibly strong.”

            Elijah sighs, setting his fork down. “So much for breakfast,” he says quietly.

            Klaus leans back against his seat, chewing on a small bite of pancake and his eyes flicker over to Elizabeth, knowing how delicate she is today.

            “Davina and I went over every possible solution. The spells the witches used to make the locks are very specific and they are incredibly organic, which is why they require several blood rituals and sacrifices to undo them,” Freya continues on. “Because of that, the anchor will also have to be something organic.”

            Klaus rolls his eyes, bringing his hands together as his elbows rest on the arms of his chair. "Freya, the beating around the bush is unnecessary," he says. "The anchor will have to be one of us, yes? The Mikaelsons are organic, immortal, and a strong source of power."

            Freya nods her head, flipping to a page in her notebook. "I looked at all of the solutions we have available. There's just not enough time to track down something better. You guys will have to pick which of you it will be."

            Rebekah, who had previously been paying little attention to the conversation as she had been lost in her own with Marcel, turns to look between her two brothers. However, long before anyone can say anything about the decision, Elijah clears his throat.

            "It will be me," he says firmly.

            "Elijah, shouldn't we talk about this?" Rebekah asks. “Kol isn’t even here.”

            "I've made up my mind, Rebekah," Elijah says back. "I will not put this burden on my little sister and I will not force it upon my brothers. I will be the anchor for the tomb."

            Klaus makes a face, unsure of how he feels about this abrupt decision. "It would make sense for it to be me. I am the Original Hybrid. I possess more power than any of us," he says. "It should be me."

            Elijah turns his attention to his younger brother, still refusing to bend. "Niklaus, you are Hope's father. Becoming the anchor for Death's tomb would paint a rather unique target on your back and I will not watch my niece lose her father because of it. I will be the anchor and I will hear nothing more about it."

            Freya takes in a breath and nods her head, shifting her gaze over to Elizabeth. "As soon as Lyanna is handled, Davina and I will repair the locks and I will make Elijah the anchor."

            No longer wanting to be anywhere near this conversation, Elizabeth pushes away from the table and leaves the dining room as fast as possible. The moment she allows her thoughts to crowd her will be the exact moment she will begin to feel afraid. She needs a distraction, something that will last long enough to carry her into the night. Frustrated, she finds herself on the main floor where Josh spars with Nathan. Both of them are drenched in sweat and as they continue to charge at each other in fast blurs, Elizabeth feels a hand pressing on the base of her spine. She jumps at the contact, looking over her shoulder to find that it’s Klaus. He presses a kiss to her temple and slides his arm around her waist, pulling her back against him. She allows it and rests her head against his shoulder, trying to find comfort in it.

            “Penny for your thoughts?” He offers softly.

            “I’m trying not to have any thoughts, actually,” she says with a sigh. “I’m afraid I’ll try to talk myself out of what I have to do tonight if I allow myself to think.”

            “If it’s any comfort to you, you’re not actually killing her,” he tries weakly. “I know what kind of pain you must be going through. You have a bond with Lyanna and I’m terribly sorry you have to go through this. You’ll be putting her to rest. She won’t have to suffer as a servant anymore.”

            Elizabeth turns slightly and leans in to press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. “I know… It’s just… hard. I keep hoping there will be a way we can save her.”

            As he tightens his hold on her middle, she takes a deep breath and forces herself to focus on the wrestling match in front of her between the two young vampires. No matter what her thoughts on the issue may be, no matter what her gut is telling her, she knows where she will end up by nightfall. To save her family and those around them who she cares for, she must do the one thing she swore to never do again. This will be closure for her. Lyanna has always been a dark spot in her life and not because of what she has become. No, it’s more because of what has happened to her. She knows the death of their mother was what sent Lyanna on her downward spiral. She did very little to help her big sister and it’s there where she truly failed her. The guilt of that has always destroyed her on the inside and tonight will be her chance to let it all go. She’s saving her sister now even if she failed to do so before.

            Walking through the woods, she stares blankly at the silver dagger in her hand. The blade is long and skinny and the hilt is engraved with a spell, something that had been put there by a witch _many_ centuries ago. She suspects this weapon is older than the Mikaelsons. The air is cold against her skin and all over the ground is low hanging fog that makes it impossible for her to see her feet. As she trudges forward with her family following closely, she decides to safely store the dagger behind her, looped through her belt and under her sweater. It’s not the best hiding spot, but it’s the most convenient. Klaus quickens his pace to match hers and he offers her a blood bag, his eyes scanning her unusually still face. How she has managed to keep herself composed at all this week is beyond him. As she once told him, not everyone is comfortable with sticking a dagger into their sibling’s chest.

            “The stronger you are, the better,” he advises when she tries to reject it.

            Stiffly, she takes the blood and brings it to her lips. “I’ll have to find a way to get close to her. She won’t like seeing me,” she says.

            Freya, who had previously been leading the group, comes to a slow stop and she drops to her knees behind a large tree. Davina does the same, swinging her backpack off of her shoulder. Elizabeth squeezes the last of the blood into her mouth and she swallows it quickly, feeling the energy inside of her spike slightly. Still, though, her nerves are burning inside of her. She’s so afraid of what may happen if she fails that she can hardly breathe.

            “You’ll have to stall her for as long as you can,” Freya advises. “She _can’t_ perform her spell to undo the next lock. Davina and I will be working here to protect you from her attacks, but you must act as soon as the moon reaches its apex. If you miss it even by a minute, it’s game over for all of us.”

            Elizabeth nods her head, passing the empty bag to Klaus. “I’ll figure it out. I think better when I’m in the moment,” she says. The undertones of worry in her voice don’t go unnoticed by the others.

            “You can do this, Liz,” Nathan says, coming up from behind with Kol right beside him. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to you. You’re strong enough to do this.”

            “Thank you,” she says, reaching forward to hug her brother. She feels so sorry for what has happened to Nathan since he came into her life, but he is so full of light that it appears to hardly bother him. He’s doing good as a vampire and he’s strong, completely in control. For as long as he may live, no matter where he decides to go, he will go far in his life.

            Pulling back, she turns to Kol and smiles softly. “I know things have been rocky between us and I know you’re trying to make up for that now, but I really appreciate that you’re putting yourself on the line like this so we can stop Lyanna,” she says, pulling him in for a surprise hug.

            Kol nods his head, taking what she said to heart. “You’re my little sister, Liz. You always have been. You’ll pull through this.”

            Turning to Elijah, she smiles softly and rests a hand on his arm. “Look out for him for me, will you? In case I don’t make it,” She asks with a light laugh. “And tell Rebekah thank you for me?”

            “Of course. But nothing will happen to you, Elizabeth. You’ve heard it many times by now, but you are strong and we will see you after this is handled,” Elijah says seriously, tucking her hair behind her ear.

            After exchanging some words with Freya and Davina, both about tactics and goodbyes, she finds the strength within herself to turn to Klaus last. He tries to hide it, but his eyes are full of worry and stress. Gently, she pulls him into her arms and he hugs her back tightly, clutching onto her as if he is afraid of letting her go.

            “Lyanna cannot kill you,” Klaus says and it almost sounds as if he’s reminding himself of the fact.

            Elizabeth nods and draws back enough to look at him. “Just because she can’t doesn’t mean she won’t. We make dangerous and stupid decisions while angry,” she says, cupping the side of his face. “You’re in charge of my cactus in case anything happens to me, okay? Just keep it alive. I’ve had that thing for sixty years.”

            Klaus smiles a little, almost laughing. How can she remain so full of life even when death is looking at her in the eyes? “I’m fairly certain nothing will happen to you, but if you insist… I will look after that stupid cactus of yours.”

            She smiles and pulls him close to her so she can kiss him. The kiss is slow and meaningful, something they both needed to share with each other. She savors how it feels to have him against her like this and when she draws back, she struggles to keep the tears out of her eyes. She doesn’t want him to see how scared she is. “Okay,” she whispers. “See you shortly.”

            Before she can break down, Elizabeth gives one last look to the part of her family that is here with her and turns her back to them when she starts to listen for her sister’s heartbeat. As she walks off, she channels all of her focus into keeping herself strong and stable. After everything she has been through, she has to be strong enough to survive this. She will not cower to her fear and she won’t break under the pressure she feels. Her name is popular in the supernatural community, even more so since her disappearance. She is the vampire who is known to be kind and full of light, but there are darker things attached to her name that she can’t walk away from. She is ruthless and she is a killer when she needs to be. People truly fear her not because of the attachment she has with the Mikaelsons, but because of the things she has done in the past to keep the peace. She is one of the greatest fighters to ever walk the earth and when it comes down to it, she will do absolutely anything to save anyone who needs it. It’s her own personal curse. And as she continues to search out her sister now, she knows she is living up to those things people are afraid of her for. She is walking towards what could possibly be her death and within the last few minutes, she has decided to not be afraid. She is Elizabeth Walker, the vampire who has lived through many tragedies.

            Her feet are silent on the floor as she follows the sounds she hears and soon, she comes to a small clearing in the tress. A few feet in front of her is the worn altar and standing on it alone is Lyanna. She wears a dark jacket and a blue blouse, a color that has always looked best on the Walker Sisters. Taking in one last deep breath, Elizabeth steps out from the shadows and Lyanna is quick to notice her presence. The sisters stare at each other, assessing what the other is here to do. It’s clear that neither is in the mood to play games with each other. No, tonight is too important for either of them to be screwing around.

            “Baby sister… I was wondering when I would see you again,” Lyanna says from the altar. "It’s a shame you have lasted this long.”

            Elizabeth keeps a slow pace as she walks up to her older sister, not a single trace of fear to be found within her. All pangs of fear have burned out and there’s nothing left inside of her that _can_ be afraid. Not after losing her mother, not after killing Lyanna the first time, not after Thomas, not after Mystic Falls, and certainly not after Charles. The moon will be at its apex soon and when that happens everything will fall into place, but until then she must stall. A lot is resting upon her now. One wrong move and their entire plan falls through. If she fails here, Death will walk. He will plague the earth and destroy everything in his path. She has to be brave. There’s no more time to find alternative plans, there’s not a single thing she can do about it.

            “I figured I should pay you one last visit before you try and free Death from his tomb,” she says calmly. “There are some things I would like to get off m chest before you condemn us all to eternal suffering in his wrath.”

            Lyanna looks up from her grimoire, a scowl on her face. “Nothing you can say will change my mind, Elizabeth,” she spats. “I’ve been working towards this for centuries. I won’t stop now and I suggest you weigh your options carefully before you try and stop be again. I mentioned my contingency plans before and if you kill me, they will be unleashed.”

            Elizabeth raises her hands, a fixed expression frozen on her face. “I’m not here to change your mind, Lyanna. I know your mind is set on this and I know nothing will stop you. You’ve finally won,” she clarifies. “I just want to talk.”

            Sighing, Lyanna closes her grimoire. She puts her hands on either side of the crumbling podium and she leans forward, looking down on her little sister. "Then speak," she commands. "I do not have time for childish games. You should feel lucky that I don’t stop you where you stand."

            “Our father likes to point out that my willingness to become a vampire was and will always be my greatest mistake, but I have always known deep down that was never true. My _true_ greatest mistake, my greatest failure, has always been what happened to you. I failed you, Lyanna,” Elizabeth confesses abruptly. In this moment, she taps into an unspoken truth between them. “You are my big sister, you always have been, but I was always the one who carried us through. I was there for you when you first discovered your magic and it was me who took care of you when our village burned. Still, I failed you.”

            Lyanna shows no change of emotion, not that Elizabeth expected there to be any. Instead, Lyanna smiles and holds her hand upward as if she were holding a wine glass. A red glowing orb forms in her palm and she moves it around threateningly, swishing it around in the air, her eyes looking her younger sister over.

            “You didn’t fail me, little sister,” she corrects. “I found my true power because of you.”

            Elizabeth provides a tearful smile. She has done many difficult things in her life and yet this has presented itself to be the hardest. Even Charles’ torture feels like child’s play compared to this. How can she do something so tragically righteous knowing that the person she has to kill shares her blood? “Oh, but I did, Lyanna,” she insists. “I never protected you. I let you go when we met the Mikaelsons and you turned into a monster in my indiscretions. You become a Servant and I could have stopped it if I was there for you after our mother’s death.”

            Growing frustrated, Lyanna pushes away from the stone podium and walks to the edge of the altar, a fury burning in her eyes. “You ran off with the monster and he turned you into the _abomination_ that you are!” She spats coldly. “And then you watched as he tore my heart from my chest. You let him murder your own sister when I was putting _everything_ on the line for you! If you want to talk about your failures, then talk about that. Our mother’s death has nothing to do with what I have become.”

            Elizabeth nods in agreement, seeing no flaws in her heated argument. What she says is completely true. In her own way, Lyanna thought she was doing the right thing. “I know, Lyanna. I stood there and did nothing. We all loved you so much. _Elijah_ loved you… but we had no idea what you had become and what you were trying to do,” she explains. “You were already so far gone. You would have killed us all and here you stand trying to do it again. We did what we did because we were afraid, but that doesn’t make it right.”

            Slowly, Elizabeth climbs the three stone steps onto the altar and she edges closer to her sister, keeping a safe distance away. The moon is not quite where it needs to be yet for the dagger to work. She must hang on for a little while longer. Lyanna, with palms that itch with anticipation, turns to her sister and she looks down on Elizabeth with a fire in her eyes.

            "So, what's stopping you now, little sister?" She asks heatedly. "What's stopping you from ripping my heart again if you know what I am about to do?"

            Elizabeth smiles weakly, her tears rolling down her cheeks. “Because I won't send you back, Lyanna. I know now where you go after death. The pain you must have endured during your sleep, I can hardly imagine,” she says slowly. “I was tortured for a decade by our father. I cannot imagine the century worth of torture you suffered for your failures.”

            Lyanna's face turns sour and she marches right up to Elizabeth, getting into her face. "Do not try to sympathize with me. You know nothing of my pain," she seethes. "You are wasting my time. Leave before I decide to kill you where you stand."

            “You know you can’t kill me, Lyanna,” Elizabeth reveals. “It was stupid of you to reveal that to Elijah. But you’re afraid of him, aren’t you? So, you confessed. I know what our mother did to protect me. Neither you nor our father can kill me and neither of you will be able to for as long as my bonds live.”

            Stiffening, Lyanna smirks. “You’ve been to see her. How pathetic you two must be. Do you really think your _bonds_ will save you? Do you really believe that the Eston magic will spare you from the hell I will force upon you?”

            Knowing that she is running out of time, Elizabeth grasps her sister's arm tightly in her hand. "Lyanna, please," she whispers. “You are making a terrible mistake.”

            Angrily, Lyanna shoves Elizabeth back with a force so hard she flies several feet away from and back into the woods. Rolling violently, Elizabeth slams into another tree and groans when she hears her arm snap unfavorably. Spitting more blood that pools into her mouth, Elizabeth picks herself back up from the ground and grasps her broken arm, snapping it back into place. She then looks to the stick that pokes out from her thigh and she grabs onto it, ripping it from her flesh. Stiffly, she shuffles back to Lyanna with an unwavering determination.

            “Why won’t you die?” Lyanna demands, heated.

            “Surely you must know that I am much more durable than that, Lyanna,” Elizabeth says as she wipes the blood away from her chin and mouth. The cockiness in her tone shines brightly through. “You’re going to have to do a lot more than that to kill me.”

            Furious, she raises her hands and starts chanting words in a language that Elizabeth cannot understand. Greek, she thinks. The one language she has yet to learn. Completely aware of what her sister’s intentions are, Elizabeth sighs. Getting the dagger into her chest will be nothing short of a tedious challenge. As a spell takes over her body, Elizabeth drops to her knees in excruciating pain. Her head feels as if it has been ignited in fire and her blood feels hot, boiling from within. Crying out, Elizabeth digs her fingers into the dirt and crawls forward, unable to think on anything other than her primary task. She is safe, she knows who linger in the woods and who guards her life.

            “I warned you, sister,” Lyanna calls down to her arrogantly. “I wonder what the great Niklaus Mikaelson will do once he realizes I have murdered his one true love.”

            “If you think Niklaus will miss me,” she pants, doing whatever she can to stall for a little while longer, “then you have not been paying attention. I am nothing but a pastime to him.”

            Lyanna laughs wickedly. She is enjoying what she is doing to Elizabeth, enjoying the pain she is inflicting even though it may not be killing her just yet. “There was a time when you thought lying was beneath you, little sister,” she recalls. “Oh, how you have changed.”

            Groaning, Elizabeth can hardly breathe. She feels as if her lungs are popping over and over again. “You _really_ want to talk about change?” She argues, almost comically, blinking rapidly as her fangs drop uncontrollably and the blood rushes to her eyes. “There… there was a time when you loved,” she evokes. “You loved Elijah and then you poisoned your soul.”

            Lyanna feels nothing towards the memory. Yelling through her pain, Elizabeth forces herself up to her feet, her boots digging into the dirt as if to keep her steady. Lyanna stares in disbelief and pushes her power outwards, forcing Elizabeth back down again. The younger Walker sister fights through her pain, ignoring her bones as they begin to snap in unfavorable and painful ways. She has to fight. Everything rests upon this task before her. Should she fail, Death will walk. Pushing harder and harder, she counts down from five. That is all the time she will allow her pain to control her.

            " _Five_ ," she breathes with a strained voice. Lyanna breaks her right arm. "Four," she screams. Lyanna shakes her head, forcing more of her power onto her sister and she stares in disbelief when it only carries half of its effect. "Three," Elizabeth cries. She can feel her heart struggling to beat. Her vision is blurred and she can hardly see anything around her. Lyanna screams, her hands glowing with a fire. "Two." Lyanna breaks bone after bone. She uses her magic to throw rocks and stakes, but they do nothing. They cannot harm her. Elizabeth peels herself up from the ground and she climbs onto the alter as she bleeds from the gashes on her body. "One," she whispers.

            Lyanna takes two steps back, her spells deflecting. "This isn't possible," she screams. "You cannot stop my magic! I am stronger than you and always have been!"

            Wiping the blood from her nose with the back of her hand, Elizabeth smirks. "You forgot one crucial detail, big sister," she says with a hoarse voice. "I am your equal. Everything you can do, I can match and overcome. _That_ is the true core of the spell our mother put on me. You know you can’t really kill me, not anymore at least, and my family will do anything for each other. I am not alone here. I brought my own witches. I am protected." Elizabeth gently covers her locket and Lyanna shakes her head, anger pumping throughout her body.

            "I am the Servant of Death!" She yells. "They can channel all of their power into that stupid necklace, but I cannot be stopped. I will kill you.”

            Using ten times the force, Lyanna pushes Elizabeth back up against the stone pillar. Lyanna smiles at her as the irises of her eyes glow a furious blood red. The dark magic that empowers her floods into her hands and she uses it, digging into her chest. Elizabeth cries out, feeling the force squeeze around her heart, death creeping up her spine. Then, a pain so blinding overcomes her. It’s unlike anything she has felt before. She is forced back by her sister’s dark magic and she slams into a nearby tree, hoisted off the ground by her neck. Her head feels like it’s being split open, like her mind is being torn apart. She feels her heart thudding lopsidedly in her chest, skipping crucial beats.

            “How dare you stand before me and preach like you know a single thing about who I am and what I am to do!” Lyanna yells, her anger making her stronger than before. She is stronger than the magic Freya and Davina are using to protect her in the woods. They’re at war. “The spell our mother put on you is meaningless! I am more than what I was when she put it on you. You cannot be saved!”

            The pain grows stronger, so much so that she can’t breathe. She can feel desiccation crawling up her neck, taking away the life she had thriving inside of her. The reality is shifting around her and she catches flickers of her mother’s face, standing before her. She tries to focus on Lyanna, but she can’t. Her mind is being taken elsewhere by a magic beyond her control.

            “Elizabeth,” her mother calls, pulling her into the pocket.

            She struggles to go to her. All she can feel is the pain. Then, all at once, she arrives and she drops to her knees in the grassy field she stood in only days before. Her body feels like it’s on fire, her mind is being torn apart. Emilia grasps the side of her face and forces her to look into her eyes, forcing her to see through the pain.

            “W-Why am… I here?” Elizabeth asks through her clenched jaw, her fingers digging deeply into the dirt and rocks, pulling on the grass.

            “Because your sister is killing you. She no longer cares about what it will do to her if you die by her hand,” Emilia says. “You have to fight it. Use the magic. She cannot harm you.”

            Elizabeth groans and her arms struggle to keep her up. Blood is spilling past her lips now at an alarming rate and it feels as if her heart is being ripped from her chest. “I… can’t.”

            “Yes, you _can._ You can fight her,” Emilia says strongly. “You are her equal. Use that power. Fight!”

            For a brief moment, Elizabeth returns to the real world where she catches sight of Lyanna smiling in triumph. When she comes back to her mother, she can hardly pick apart reality from the pocket. Everything is merging together. All of her feelings… the pain… the desiccation… “It’s too much.”

            Emilia grabs the other side of her daughter’s face now, forcing her to look up even though she fights it. “You are Elizabeth Walker, the survivor. You are a fighter and people fear your name because you are _strong._ You have a future, my darling. You _can_ fight Lyanna and you _must_. Don’t let her take your life.”

            “I can’t! She’s… too… strong!” Elizabeth yells angrily.

            “So, let her win then!” Emilia challenges. “Give up and let her free Death. Allow her to kill everyone you love. Allow her to kill Nathan, to kill Elijah. Allow her to take away Niklaus!”

            Breathing raggedly, Elizabeth clenches her hands into impossibly tight fists, not caring when the rocks in the dirt cut into her palm. She focuses hard on her pain, on the desiccation that is taking away her life, and she channels it elsewhere. She uses it to fuel her determination and to ignite her abilities. Emilia nods her head as she sees the changes within her, as she sees the blood rush to her daughter’s eyes and as those beautiful brown eyes begin to glow with the spell that shields her. Elizabeth shakes her head and she struggles, unable to see clearly. She forces air through her lungs and she blinks away her tears until no more fall.

            “Good. You are stronger than her. Don’t give up. Keep pushing,” Emilia encourages.

            And as the pocket begins to fade out around Elizabeth, she clasps her hand around her mother’s. “Will I see you again?” She asks.

            Emilia smiles, a touch of sadness on her face. “The world you live in is a never-ending pool of possibilities, my love. Your future still holds so many challenges and in your darkest hour, which still has yet to come and it won’t for many years, I will be there to guide you. We will meet again.”

            Elizabeth doesn’t get the chance to respond. Her reality snaps around her like a rubber band and the force that once pinned her to the pillar is no more. She drops to the floor of the altar and Lyanna stares in shock, watching as the desiccation that had almost completely overcome her fades away. This shouldn’t be possible. No vampire can be stronger than her, not when Death himself provides her gifts. From behind them, a familiar face rushes behind Lyanna and Elizabeth stares in horror. This was not a part of the plan. Klaus bares his fangs and is quick to strike, sinking them into Lyanna’s neck. The witch screams and turns furiously, pushing Klaus back up against a pillar of his own. Elizabeth chokes against the force that now holds her by her neck and she squirms, kicking her legs to get free. Lyanna is quick to inflict pain upon Klaus and he yells as she breaks his bones and reaches into his chest for his heart.

            “Klaus, no!” Elizabeth screams, fighting.

            Then, her necklace begins to glow, burning white-hot, and the force deflects. Elizabeth pushes against her sister's magic and she climbs forward until she stands directly behind of Lyanna once more as she focuses on the hybrid. Elizabeth glances upwards at the sky and sees where the moon is. It's time.

            "Lyanna, I failed you and I-I will never be able to make it right," she says slowly as her sister whips around to face her with the same look of hatred in her eyes. "But I can take away your suffering. It's going to be okay."

            In the next three seconds, several things happen at once. Lyanna throws spell after spell at Elizabeth as her sister chargers her, but none carry their full impact. Davina and Freya have beat her in their power struggle. At a speed that Lyanna cannot see, Elizabeth pulls the dagger from the back of her belt and she raises it, plunging it down into the heart of her older sister. Lyanna's magic ceases completely then, Klaus dropping to the floor, and she looks down at the dagger with her mouth open. Elizabeth's bottom lip begins to tremble as her sister drops to her knees and she drops with her, holding her face in between her hands.

            "It's going to be okay, Lyanna," she whispers. "Sleep now."

            Lyanna looks up from the dagger and she looks at her younger sister, seeing clearly for the first time in half a millennium. "Elizabeth," she gasps quietly. “I’m… sorry…”

            As the life drains from her eyes, Elizabeth no longer sees the monster her sister had become. In the last few seconds of her life, she only sees the person who she was supposed to be and she knows that it wasn't the Servant of Death who spoke her name. It was her sister, the true and pure Lyanna Walker. As Lyanna collapses forward and draws her last breath, Elizabeth holds her close and bends down to lay her on the cold stone floor.

            From the forest emerges Freya and Davina followed by Elijah, who walks beside Rebekah. There is an unspoken pain in Elijah’s eyes as he looks to Lyanna’s body uncomfortably. They all look at Elizabeth with heavy hearts knowing just how much pain she is in and not just physically. Klaus is by her side first and he gently touches her shoulder, drawing her back to reality.

            "She's gone, love," he says quietly as if not to disturb her peace.

            Elizabeth nods, wiping her nose, and she stands shakily. Her lacerations are healing and her bones are no longer broken, but she's a mess on the inside. "I know," she breathes. "I think the dagger lifted Death's curse. It was Lyanna at the end..."

            Climbing onto the altar, Freya kneels beside Lyanna and she holds her hands above the body with her eyes closed. She mumbles words under her breath and when she gets her confirmation, she looks up to Elizabeth. "She's at rest now," she says calmly. "Lyanna is in peace. Her essence is in the dagger. It’s over."

            Taking in a deep breath, Elizabeth nods and looks down at the hand she used to take her sister down. In the moonlight, she notices something peculiar. Frowning, she holds her hand closer to her face and examines her fingertips closely. They've turned gray, petrified almost.

            "I'm..." she starts slowly as if she is unsure of herself. There are no fatal wounds on her body and yet, this is happening to her. "I'm desiccating."

            Freya looks up from the body and jumps to her feet, rushing over to Elizabeth. She pulls the vampire’s hand in her own, examining the graying skin for herself. "That's not right. Lyanna's magic is gone," she says. "You can't be desiccating."

            Elijah looks at the dagger with a hint of curiosity in his eyes and he kneels down to gently touch the hilt. "Unless it's not happening because of Lyanna's or Death’s magic," he guesses. "I believe the dagger may have carried some unknown consequences upon use. Consequences Kol had been unaware of when he procured it from the coven of witches."

            Freya looks to Davina who looks to Elizabeth who has her eyes glued to her hand. There was a curse attached to the dagger and it has latched itself onto her, feeding on her life. She’s dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes the terror of Lyanna! However, I seem to recall her mentioning contingency plans. Hmm...  
> I didn't want to keep you guys waiting for this chapter. I was up all night editing it. I actually doubled the length. In its original draft, it was around 3500 words long and I capped it at nearly 6800 after going through it again. This moment has been 28 chapters in the making and soon, as this story wraps up, it will be time for Charles to finally meet his end. I wrote both of their ends early on and I've been excited about publishing them for months. :)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	29. Lost Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Struggling with the death of her sister and the curse that is taking her life, Elizabeth is faced with yet another difficult decision.

“I’ve brought you a gift,” Klaus says almost happily as he appears in front of her.

            Elizabeth looks up from the old grimoire in her lap and she eyes the fabric that Klaus holds in his hands suspiciously. “Is that what I think it is?” She asks, amused.

            Klaus smiles softly and holds the sling out with both hands to show it off to her. “I thought you’d like it given your current predicament,” he says. “Rebekah helped me pick it out for you. I do believe it will bring out your lovely eyes.”

            Giggling almost, Elizabeth closes the grimoire and pushes it off to the side as she scoots herself uneasily to the edge of the couch. She then shoves the quilt off from her shoulder to reveal her graying and shriveled arm, frowning at the sight of it. She has seen desiccated vampires countless of times before, but somehow it looks different now that it’s rapidly taking over her own body. It’s like a sickness. A horrifying disease. She looks petrified and within a couple weeks, she knows she will be.

            “That’s not looking any better is it?” She asks self-consciously. “I forgot how dreadful it looks. Doesn’t feel too great either.”

            Klaus kneels down in front of her and swiftly wraps the sling around her delicate neck, helping her rest her dying arm into it with ease. He then lengthens and tightens the buckle to an appropriate length for her and he leans back once it’s latched, admiring how perfect she looks. It’s actually rather cute now that he’s seeing it on her for the first time. Even shriveled up and dying, she is still the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes upon.

            “Well, it’s certainly not the most striking fashion piece, but at least you won’t have an arm flapping about as you walk now,” he assesses brightly. “How much blood have you been drinking?”

            Elizabeth gestures down to the trash bin beside the coffee table and there’s a grim expression on her sunken face. “Too much. I’m drinking through the blood bags faster than I should be and it’s not really helping. Slowing the process minimally, maybe, but I’ll be in a wheelchair by the end of the month,” she says warily. What she’s going through is uncomfortable and it’s unfavorable, but no matter how it feels… she’s oddly at peace with what’s happening to her. She’s not afraid, no is she worried about what might happen. “If I keep drinking blood like I am, my cravings will get stronger and there will be none for anyone else. I need to start cutting back.”

            Klaus frowns deeply, disagreeing with her hasty decision. “You said drinking blood is slowing the process down. Why would you want to stop drinking?” He asks curiously.

“Because all it’s doing is slowing it down _slightly_ ,” she reiterates. “Until Freya and Davina can find the loophole in the curse, I will continue to desiccate until there’s not a single drop of blood left in my body. I’m not going to keep draining the blood supply we have if it’s a lost cause.”

“The blood will at least keep you lively,” he argues. “If you stop drinking however much you crave, you’ll grow weaker.”

            Making a crestfallen expression, Elizabeth reaches her good hand forward and cups the side of her lover’s worried face. He doesn’t understand why she has to do this. Shaking his head in disagreement, Klaus stands and towards above her to get away from her touch. She knows him better than anyone and she knows he’s upset with her. Regardless, she can’t bend on her decision. When she doesn’t say anything that will make it better, he angrily turns around and kicks the coffee table with a violent force, sending it sailing against the far wall across the room.

            “So, you’re just going to give up, then?” He asks heatedly, keeping his back to her. “Against all promises we’ve made to each other… you’re going to give it all up?”

            Elizabeth sighs deeply and stands from the couch, suddenly regretting her decision to tell him about her plan. She wanted to tell him because they’re together and are supposed to be doing these things as a couple, but she knew that he would try to blow it out of proportion. “I’m not giving up on anything, Klaus. I’m still here and I’m still fighting, but this isn’t just about me. This problem affects all of us. I’m making the choice because I’m drinking far too much blood. The others, including yourself, will starve if I continue like I am,” she clarifies seriously. “We agreed to not draw unnecessary attention to the city. This is me protecting that agreement.”

            Turning around to face her once more in his burning rage, Klaus stares deeply into her pleading eyes. He doesn’t pull away when she grabs for his hand and he thinks, maybe, it’s because he knows she keeps him grounded in moments like this. “Then let us starve,” he says darkly, his eyes flickering between hers.

            Smiling slightly, Elizabeth tilts her head to the side and ever so gently, she leans in to leave a lingering kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Always so selfish,” she muses. “I would laugh I knew you weren’t being so serious.”

            Moving in a blur, Klaus captures either side of her face and brings his lips down onto hers in a rush. He kisses her as if it were their last and he savors it, admiring how she tastes and how she responds to him when they’re close like this. Pulling herself away from him, Elizabeth smiles softly once more and rests her forehead against his affectionately.

            “I love you, Niklaus Mikaelson,” she breathes. “Someday, you will accept that.”

            Freezing for only the briefest of moments, Klaus rests his gentle hand on her neck and he breathes in her scent, allowing himself to grow lost in it. He has always loved her scent… it was one of the first things that drew him in when they met. “Tell me that again when this is over, when you are safe,” he says sternly. “I will not hear it knowing you are so eager to desiccate.”

            Groaning, Elizabeth steps back and shakes her head at him. “You’re stubborn too,” she snaps. “I _know_ you resent me for making this choice, but I am doing what I feel is right for this family. Please do not make this into something it’s not.”

            “I will make this into whatever I damn well please,” Klaus spats and before she knows it, he’s gone.

            Sighing heavily, Elizabeth runs her hand through her hair and looks down at the arm that has been confined to the sling. She peels back her shirt to discover that the desiccation has grown to her shoulder and she knows that if she were to take off her boots, she would find the same on her toes. Frustrated with everything that has been happening to her, she walks over to the kicked coffee table and she moves it back to where it was before Klaus’ temper got in the way. There’s a large dent in it now and some of the wood broke off in the impact, making it look almost sad. She frowns at it and runs her fingers over the wood, wishing there was a way she could make him understand.

            “Is there a particular reason why Niklaus is currently brooding in Freya’s study?” Elijah asks from the entrance of the room. “He barked at me when I asked him how you are today.”

            Elizabeth looks over to him and rolls her eyes, annoyance creeping up her spine. “He’s upset with me because I have chosen to cut back on my blood intake,” she explains. “He believes I am giving up.”

            Frowning, Elijah walks towards her and takes note of Lyanna’s grimoire that rests on the couch. “Elizabeth, you shouldn’t stop feeding,” he says. “For all we know, the blood could be the only thing preventing the desiccation from speeding up.”

            Throwing her head back irritably, Elizabeth stares up at the ceiling. “Elijah, I don’t need you to tell me what I should do when I have already heard it from Klaus,” she says. “I am not depriving myself of blood. I am simply cutting back to a normal diet for the sake of you and everyone else in this house. My cravings are growing stronger every day. There’s no use in trying to keep up with it.”

            “I will not argue with you, Elizabeth,” Elijah then says. “You should know by now that I am the only person who will support you no matter what decision you make. I owe you that.”

            Elizabeth grimaces, shaking her head in disagreement. “You owe me nothing, Elijah. For five hundred years you have guarded me and have been there when I needed you,” she replies wholeheartedly.

            “Yes,” he pauses, “but not when you needed me the most. Where was I when you were snatched from the hallway just outside of this door?”

            “No matter how many times you insist that my disappearance is your fault, I will never believe it, Elijah,” she says strongly. “If you want to be blunt about it, then fine. _Nobody_ was there when I needed somebody the most. For ten years I wondered where my family was – the very same family that _swore_ to protect one another – and nobody came to rescue me. But the fault does not rest upon you, Elijah. I do not blame you nor will I ever.”

            The old vampire stares into the woman’s eyes who he has deemed as his little sister and he brings a hand to his chin, thoughts running through his mind. “You are a wonderful woman, Elizabeth Walker,” he says simply. “You have been put on your death bed too many times now, but I swear to you we will find the cure to this curse.”

            “I have no doubt that we’ll find the loophole for the curse,” Elizabeth says, adjusting her sling. “The only problem is time. It started in my hand and has crawled all the way to my shoulder in a week. Now it’s on my feet. I’ll useless within a week, dead by the end of the month.”

            Elijah steps forward and carefully peels back her shirt to examine her shoulder himself. “I’ll see if I can help Freya. Perhaps the local witches have a solution we have yet to think of,” he says casually.

            Elizabeth nods and she’s about to turn to leave, but then she stops and looks to him once more. "How are you holding up?" She asks, looking between his worried eyes.

            Elijah looks to her and he smiles softly, appreciating how big her caring heart is. "We should be asking you that. You've gone through a lot and your troubles are not yet over."

            "I wake up every day with new struggles, but I'm curious about you right now, Elijah," she says seriously. "Out of everyone in this house, we had the strongest connections to Lyanna."

            Looking away, Elijah subtly nods. He won't be the first to admit that he has felt haunted by the events that took place last week. Hayley noticed it during their last phone call and it took him many hours to accept the things he’s feeling in the aftermath of all that Lyanna did to them. "I tell myself every day that she's at rest now, but... I can't help but feel guilty. Could we have helped her if we looked harder for a solution? Was it still possible to save her when we all met centuries ago? I should let it go, I know... but surely you can understand? You yourself were hanging onto any last sliver of hope you could find."

            "Of course. Lyanna was my sister and I wanted, more than anything, to help her. Some days, I feel like what happened to her is entirely my fault. I could have spared her from being a Servant had I helped her through the death of our mother. Instead, I grew cold to the world... and I let her fall," Elizabeth says freely. "In a way, we failed her. But I can't allow myself to think like that anymore. She's at rest and her body will never be found."

            From within his coat pocket, Elijah pulls out a small black box and he stares at it for a while before hesitantly passing it to her with an unusually stiff hand. "I found this while you were being held captive. It belongs to you now."

            Elizabeth takes the box and lifts open the lid to look at what's inside. At the sight of the old bracelet, she feels her heart sink low in her chest. She knows exactly what this is. It's the bracelet Lyanna always wore before they lost her to the dark magic. She was hardly seen without it and it was made by their mother, given as a gift on her fifth birthday. Those days are long gone now, but here the bracelet remains. Gently, she touches it and smiles softly, feeling the magic that comes from it.

            "I never thought I would see this again," she says. "Thank you, Elijah."

            "I know we will never truly be able to let go of her, but we can put her darkness behind us now. We can remember her for who she was instead of what she became. Even though our memories of her are strong, the bonds we shared with her will always be stronger," he says. "That chapter of your life is done now, Elizabeth. It's time for you to flourish."

            Feeling a rarely felt warmth of happiness spread through her, she leans forward and awkwardly pulls Elijah in for a one-armed hug. He hugs her back and for a while, they just stand there. There is a lot of truth in what he said. Lyanna's darkest period is over now and she will never come back to resume her work. It's time to move on from her and focus on the dangers that lie in their future. Their lives are long and although periods of peace can be found, she knows better than to believe everything will be perfect now that Lyanna is gone. Charles is still out there and Emilia told her something important while she was facing Lyanna. She will see her mother again during her own darkest period, which has yet to come. It terrifies her to think about what that could mean. What rests in her future that is so horrific that it forces her into darkness?

            "Are you positive you want to become the anchor?" She asks, pulling away.

            Elijah nods his head, still having no doubts. "I'm positive. It makes the most sense. I am the eldest living, putting Freya aside for the moment, and my younger siblings, as silly as it sounds, are just now getting around to living their lives. I suspect Marcel will be taking Rebekah's hand any day now and Niklaus, as stubborn as he is, finally has you. And then there's Kol... Davina just turned and he needs to look out after her," he says. "It needs to be me so they can live."

            Elizabeth frowns, saddened by his assessment. "You need to live your life too, Elijah. You have Hayley. You want to marry her. It doesn’t matter if you’re the eldest."

            "You're right, but the fact still remains. I will not put this burden on any of my siblings. It has to be me. For as long as I have been alive, I have looked after them and I won't stop now. someone has to keep us all balanced."

            It’s hard for her to accept, but she nods. Elijah has been sure of himself for a week now and nothing will change his mind. He won’t risk his family, it’s not like him to at all. “Okay,” she says after a while. “I’ll support you.”

            Happy that they’ve come to an agreement, Elijah straightens his jacket and gestures to the door. “I did come to you for a reason. Davina is looking for you. She has some questions that I believe you may be able to answer.”

            “About the curse?”

            “About being a vampire. She has been reluctant to speak with the rest of us about it. I believe she trusts you the most. You may find her in the living room.”

            Elizabeth nods, understanding. She turns on her heel and walks right out of the room, turning down the hall. In a rush, she’s standing in the entrance to the living room and just as Elijah said she would, she finds Davina standing beside the fireplace. The young vampire has her arms crossed over her chest and the curtains have been shut, preventing the sunlight from creeping in. Elizabeth approaches carefully, knowing that Davina is still getting used to her new senses and abilities.

            “Elijah said you were looking for me,” she says.

            Davina looks over her shoulder and nods, a look of confusion on her face. “I was hoping you could help me understand a couple of things.”

            Feeling tired, Elizabeth parks herself on the edge of the old couch and crosses one leg over the other. “I’m all yours.”

            Turning, Davina looks around the room as she searches for the right words to her questions. This transition hasn’t been easy on her. “All my life, I grew up knowing what a vampire is. I read about them, I’ve been around them, I’ve killed them… and now I am one. Reading about a vampire is one thing, but to actually be one is something entirely different. I’m so on edge that every time I hear a noise, I jump. It’s like I’m hot-wired to respond to every little thing.”

            Elizabeth listens to her carefully, seeing the questions she has through her explanation. “It’s your senses. When we turn, _everything_ is heightened. It’s not just our emotions. Our eyesight, our hearing, even our sense of smell and touch. Now, I imagine it’s worse for you because you’re a witch. You’re technically not supposed to exist. And yet, here you are. Existing,” she says. “There’s no handbook on how to do this because everyone responds to it differently. With time, you will adjust. You will develop habits and you’ll be okay.”

            Davina moves to sit on the coffee table in front of her, her hands placed on her knees with anticipation. “But what about right now? I can hardly be around Kol because I don’t want to hurt him. My instinct isn’t just to jump or move at impossible speeds. When I get like that, my magic jumps out of me. I’m afraid.”

            “Everything about being a vampire is centered around control. New vampires have a harder time with it because they’ve never felt anything like it before. Regardless, you _can_ learn. Yes, you have it harder than most. Yes, you have abilities that no vampire should have. No matter what disadvantages you have, you can turn them into your advantages. Davina, you are an incredibly powerful being,” Elizabeth says. “I’ve come across few vampires with the ability to practice magic in my time and even they were just Siphoners. There’s a reason we’re not supposed to have it and here you are. Right now, you need to learn how to control your magic again. You’ve done it before, when you first discovered your powers, and you did it when you had the magic of the Harvest girls in you. Learn to control that and everything else will come naturally.”

            Davina sighs and looks down in her lap, letting go of her building tension. “How do you make everything sound easy?”

            Elizabeth shakes her head, reaching out to rest her hand on Davina’s. “It’s not easy and I’m not going to sit here and preach to you that it is. You’re going to get angry. You’re going to throw things and cast spells you didn’t mean to. However, with time and a lot of practice, you can do it. All you have is time now. Once I have two arms and working feet again, I can continue to teach you how to fight. It’ll help balance your anger.”

            From within the inside of her jacket, Davina pulls out a white gold chain and she holds it up in between them, letting the light from the fire flicker off of the lapis lazuli pendant. Elizabeth smiles at it and reaches out to hold the pendant against her palm, examining its little features. It’s small and has character, something that was made a long time ago. It’s beautiful.

            “It took forever to find one that I liked. Kol wanted me to wear a ring because it’s safer, but I always liked the idea of a necklace better,” Davina explains. “For now, at least.”

            “It’s perfect for you,” Elizabeth agrees.

            At the entrance, another member joins them and Elizabeth looks over her shoulder to see who it is. Klaus looks between them and unlike earlier, there’s no longer a coldness in his eyes and his face seems softer. He has his arms crossed over his chest and it would appear that’s he’s struggling with something. This is the Klaus that she so often sees at the end of the day when he lets down his guard. It’s rare to see him like this while he’s out and about.

            “Davina, would you mind if I stole Elizabeth from you?” He asks politely.

            Davina exchanges a look with Elizabeth, both women finding themselves to be caught off guard by his tone. “Um, sure… I need to talk to Rebekah about a few things anyways.”

            Unsteadily rising from the couch, Elizabeth moves over to Klaus and he takes her available hand, dragging her down the hallway. She follows him the best she can, battling an uncomfortable amount of exhaustion. He takes her right back to her bedroom and he shuts the door, trying to give them as privacy as he can in a house full of supernatural creatures. She eases herself down on the edge of her bed, running her fingertips along the fresh comforter. Klaus remains by the door and now that it’s just them, he lets her see just how bothered he truly is. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what he wants to say to her, but even so… this is unnatural.

            “I was upset earlier,” he begins, finally meeting her eyes. “I was angry and I still am, however… I’m trying not to be for your sake. Often times, I find myself despising that part of you that keeps you good because it makes you do things that put your life in jeopardy for the sake of others. It makes you risk your life so the people you love can continue to live. I don’t like your decision, but I want you to explain it to me. I need to understand.”

            Elizabeth smiles a little and holds her hand out to him, interlacing their fingers together when he sits beside her. “I never make these kinds of decisions with the intention of hurting you, Klaus. This problem that I’m dealing with isn’t just mine. It’s all of ours because it affects all of us. Every day, my cravings for blood are getting stronger. If I were a new vampire, I probably would have drank my way through New Orleans by now. No matter how much I drink, it’s going to get worse. If it’s helping at all with the desiccation, it’s not doing enough to stop it. It’s getting faster and there’s nothing the blood can do to stop it,” she explains. “I’m not cutting back to upset you or make you angry. I’m cutting back because we have a new vampire in the house. I’m cutting back because there’s only so many times we can go to the blood bank. Sure, I could feed off a fresh body, but you know how I feel about that. Freya will find a solution, Klaus.”

            He listens to her carefully, adjusting to this new way of thinking he’s trying to adopt for her. For as long as he’s been alive, he’s only thought about his family and himself in a solo mindset. Never has he had to give much thought to someone like Elizabeth, the only person that he has in his life whom he loves in such a way that it makes him want to spend the rest of their lives together. His decisions can no longer be made with the impression that the outcomes will only impact him. His choices impact her now as well and he has to consider that. They’re together, a couple, and with that comes a life he has never experienced before. Sure, he’s had lovers in the past, but most of them left, they faced horrible deaths, or they cast him away. Elizabeth has always been his constant. What he has with her is real and she’s not going anywhere.

            “May I suggest something?” He asks, not really responding to anything she said.

            Elizabeth tilts her head to the side curiously. “Does it involve killing people?”

            Klaus makes an irritated face and he moves to roll his sleeve up to the middle of his forearm. “It’s no secret that my blood possesses certain powers. It’s stronger than yours and it’s stronger than my sibling’s. I want you to try it to see if it will help. If it does, I can give you servings throughout the day. You cannot lie to me and say that the desiccation doesn’t hurt, love. I know it’s a dreadful experience.”

            Elizabeth looks between his eyes and his wrist, trying to make a decision. He does have a point. Out of everyone in the house, his blood does contain more power and it certainly wouldn’t hurt anyone to try it. As the blood rushes to her eyes and her fangs drop, she gently grabs his wrist and brings it to her lips where she bites down and tastes his blood as it washes over her tongue. She drinks slowly, not wanting to allow her cravings to dominate over her. At first, she feels nothing different. The burning is still in the back of her throat and she still feels weak. He encourages her to drink more and she does so hesitantly, trying to maintain a slow pace. With more of his blood in her, she begins to feel a warmth in her arm and the dreadful feeling of being helplessly exhausted lessens. She pulls away from his wrist and peels back her shirt, watching as the desiccation recedes by a centimeter. It’s not a huge improvement, but an improvement nevertheless.

            “It helps,” she says, feeling more awake than she had been minutes before.

            Klaus smiles a little, watching as the color returns to her face. “Good. We’ll do this periodically throughout the day. Hopefully, it will prolong the inevitable until a cure can be found.”

            Wanting to test it out, Elizabeth stands from her bed and she feels perfectly fine until something changes within her violently. A pain tears through her stomach, like she had swallowed a thousand pushpins. She sways and brings her head to her forehead, feeling as if the room is spinning around her. She groans and she watches as the desiccation on her arm gets darker, almost like a shriveled corpse. Klaus watches in horror as the color drains away from her face and when she falls to the ground, he catches her. She breathes raggedly and forces his hands back, not wanting to be touched. Rushing, she snaps into her bathroom, knocking almost everything from her shelves, and drops down to her knees in front of her toilet where all of the blood she had drank comes back up. She sobs into the bowl and Klaus pulls her hair back, trying to help her stay clean. He rubs her back as she works her way through it, feeling horrible for what he did to her.

            “I don’t… I-I don’t think I’m going to make it much longer,” she sobs, flushing down the mess she made. She can feel the desiccation up to her knees now and at the sight of her left hand, she catches it on her fingertips now as well.

            “We’ll find a way. Maybe Freya has a solution,” Klaus says and she knows he’s mostly saying it for himself.

            Shaking her head, she stands with his help and tries to calm down in his arms. Her body feels drained, worse than it did before. His blood sped up the process. “I’m dying, Klaus…” she whispers.

            He refuses to accept it. Scooping her up in his arms, he marches straight out of her bedroom and all but kicks down the doors to Freya’s study. She looks up in shock and Keelin, who is sat in front of her desk, looks over her shoulder in alarm.

            “Is she okay?” Freya asks.

            “No. Her body rejected my blood. It was working and then it stopped,” Klaus says angrily, setting Elizabeth down on the couch.

            Elizabeth wheezes as she takes in a ragged breath through her tired lungs and she leans back against the cushions, trying to relax so she stops burning excess energy. She doesn’t have that much to spare anymore. “His blood sped it up. I felt fine at first, but now I…” She closes her eyes, trailing off. She feels ill, like she caught some horrible flu or like she has been poisoned.

            “Surely you must have something useful by now?” Klaus begs, his anger and worry getting the best of him. “I will not lose her. Not now.”

            “We’ve been doing a lot of research into the dagger. We think we found a temporary solution to save Elizabeth’s life, but it’s complicated,” Keelin says and it brings a small amount of peace to Elizabeth’s mind.

            “If Kol had done the proper research on this dagger, we would have seen the underlying curse,” Freya says. “In order for this dagger to take the life of a witch, it must be given a life. Meaning, the person who uses this dagger will also die. For vampires, they die by desiccation. This particular coven of witches was extremely poetic and thought it was the best way. A life for a life. An eye for an eye. It kept balance.”

            “So, use your magic and undo the curse _before_ she dies,” Klaus says with a throw of his hand. “She will not last much longer. Not now, at least.”

            Freya looks to her younger brother, heat in her eyes. “I am _trying_ , Klaus,” she snaps. “This dagger is layered with a ton of complex spells and I can undo them, but I need time. I will need a few months to reverse the desiccation. I have to draw from certain stages of the moon because that's what it took for the dagger to work.”

            Elizabeth looks down at her arm, a frown on her lips. “I don’t have a few months, Freya. I’m not even sure if I’ll make it a week now. The desiccation is much worse now,” she says. “I feel like I haven’t fed for weeks.”

            Freya nods and gestures to the dagger in question on the desk. “I know. That’s why Davina and I spent hours plowing in the archives. We found a solution that will work for now, but I don’t think you’re going to like it,” she explains.

            “Does it matter?” Klaus asks. “I will not have Elizabeth die because of Kol’s incompetence. You will do whatever it takes to save her.”

            “I can’t destroy the curse in time, but I _can_ transfer it to another body,” Freya reveals.

            “What does that mean?” Elizabeth asks hesitantly.

            Freya makes a grim face. “It means you will have to give the curse to someone else who can survive it. Klaus, Rebekah, Kol… any of them will work. We can’t give it to Elijah because he’s set to be the anchor. You’ll have to choose and.”

            Elizabeth parts her lips as the weight of the matter settles upon her. That’s not what she expected at all. How the hell is she supposed to make that choice?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to draw these last chapters out for as long as possible so I can get a little further ahead in the writing for the sequel. You guys have no idea how excited I am for it to come out! Sooooo much work has gone into it and it's going to be really interesting to bring these characters over to Mystic Falls. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos :)


	30. For Which Cannot Be Undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the Mikaelsons will be laid to rest as Elizabeth is forced into making a decision to save her life.

“Klaus, you are asking me to _kill_ someone in this house,” Elizabeth argues tiredly.

            Klaus paces the room in front of the flickering fireplace, his frustration shown clear on his exhausted face. “That’s hardly the case and it doesn’t matter if you’re okay with doing it or not. You don’t get to choose,” he snaps sharply. “You will die if you do not let Freya transfer the curse to one of us. I will _not_ have that.”

            Elizabeth sighs deeply as she drops her gaze down to the wheelchair that she sits in. Her legs have become utterly useless in the two days since Freya gave her the one option that she has to save her life and there’s not much to be said about her energy. She knows what it feels like to go days without sleep, to go days without feeding, and somehow this feels entirely worse. She’s weak, on the verge of dying. Breathing is nothing short of a challenge now. Every time she draws in a breath, she feels the desiccation crawl further up her body. It’s past her hips, on both arms, crawling up her neck. She’s basically a corpse.

            “I understand, Klaus. I do, but… everyone in this house is a part of my family. Your siblings are mine as well. I don’t have the strength in me to kill another person I care about. Not anymore,” she says weakly, knowing she’s going to get criticized again for it. Nothing she can say in this argument will help him see her point. He’s so blinded by his anger that he can’t see the issues she’s struggling with.

            Klaus abruptly stops and turns to face her for the first time since they’ve started fighting. There is a look of deep betrayal in his eyes, a look that makes her heart sink so low in her chest. She has only seen this look a handful of times before and it haunts her every time. He’s hurting. “And here you are again… making another life-threatening decision without my consent,” he says brokenly. “If you are so eager to die, why bother telling me that you love me? Why bother telling me that you need me?”

            “Would you please just listen to what I’m trying to tell you?” She begs, trying to maintain a low heart rate. “I’m not saying no. What I’m saying is no matter how you choose to spin this, I _am_ killing a member of our family. We don’t know how long it will take Freya to break the curse. It could be months. It could take years. I’m not just going to point my finger at someone and pass it off like it’s a baton in a race.”

            “If you’re not saying no, then what the bloody hell are you waiting for?” He demands. “You’ve had two days to decide. If you don’t want to make the choice, then fine. I’ll make it for you. I will take the curse.”

            Elijah looks up from where he sits on the couch and he closes the book in his hands, shaking his head. “Niklaus, that wouldn’t be wise. Hope will be returning to us in a couple of weeks. She will want to see her father.”

            “Now do you understand why this is so hard?” Elizabeth asks the hybrid. “My decision doesn’t come without consequences.”

            Klaus opens his mouth to argue his point some more, but he is quickly cut off by Freya and Rebekah who walk into the room in a furious storm. Within seconds, the two sisters can feel the tension that thrives around the couple in the room and Rebekah makes an irritated face, fed up with what she’s been hearing for the past forty-eight hours. It’s ridiculous how long they can argue for without getting anywhere. They’re too bull-headed.

            “I cannot stand to hear you too bickering any longer,” Rebekah says sternly. “It’s growing rather irritating.”

            Elijah, who seems almost delighted to have this sudden change of pace, jumps right in to support it. “Yes, I agree. The arguing between the two of you is becoming old,” he says. “Elizabeth, I realize your decision is difficult, but you must allow Freya to transfer the curse to one of us. You don’t have much longer. A couple of hours at most.”

            Feeling as if everyone has turned against her, Elizabeth looks at the faces of her family with a troubled expression. With what’s left of her left arm, she turns her chair around and watches as Marcel and Davina joins into the room wearing the same faces of concern. Everyone is giving her the same look now and it’s making her gut twist into knots. Next to join the party is Nathan and her face softens at the sight of him, seeing the pain in his tortured green eyes. He’s been crying.

            “Why do I feel like this is an intervention?” She asks, wheezing. “How can you ask me to give the curse to any one of you? We all have too many important connections. You’re all too important.”

            Freya takes a seat on the couch beside Elijah, crossing her arms over her chest comfortably. “Truthfully, you only have to pick one of the Originals. The curse won’t actually kill them like it will for you. It will be painful, but they’ll be in a state of rest. It’s almost identical to the state Lyanna is in.”

            Somehow, that doesn’t make her feel any better. Frustrated, Elizabeth runs her hand through her hair. Last to join in is Kol and just by the expression on his face, it’s obvious that he feels an unmeasurable amount of guilt for what’s happening. He never would have suggested using the dagger if he knew this would happen. It was a mistake, but what was he supposed to do? They were running out of time, Lyanna needed to be stopped…

            “Elizabeth, sweetheart, it’s time to climb off your high horse,” Klaus says rudely. “Let Freya save your delicate life or so help me I will have it done against your will.”

            “Jesus Christ,” Elizabeth mutters. She’s not sure why her life has to be so endlessly complicated. She understands how ignorant she must be for resisting the only option she has to save her life like this. And almost as if it was waiting for the right moment, her heart starts to skip beats. Nearly everyone in the room can hear it, of course, and Klaus narrows his eyes. She won’t be able to hang on much longer now. Her heart is struggling, barely able to keep going. If it stops, it’s game over.

            “For crying out loud,” Rebekah snaps, pushing away from the bookcase she had been leaning on. “I will make it painfully easy for you, then. I want the curse to be transferred to me. What you are facing is _permanent_ death. None of us will have that. You want to sit there and point out how important we are, but you seem to be ignoring just how important you are.”

            All eyes flicker to the youngest Mikaelson. She moves confidently to the center of the room, looking at all of the faces of her family. Nobody is quite sure what to say in the wake of her suggestion. Nobody but she knows this, but her mind was made up the second she heard it would be possible to transfer the curse. She thought about it for a long time and it makes the most sense for it to go to her.

            “Rebekah, the curse should go to me,” Klaus attempts in a kinder voice. “You don’t know what kind of pain you will be exposing yourself to. This is not like anything you have felt before. The curse makes it stronger, more intense. You will feel as if your body is being torn apart in every passing second. Elizabeth can handle it because she’s been through worse, but you… You should let it go to me.”

            “Like Elijah said, you are Hope’s father, Nik, and she’s coming home soon. If you truly think I will let you take yourself away from her, then you are a bloody idiot. Besides, Liz is going to need you by her side when you go after Charles,” she says passionately. “And that is _exactly_ why it has to go to me. We don’t have time to sit here and debate about it. Her heart is barely beating now. We can all hear it.”

            “Sister, I was the one who brought the dagger into play. I can deal with the consequences,” Kol offers. For all of the guilt he feels, it really should be him. Davina, who stands beside him, shakes her head sadly and takes his hand.

            “Well, if we are going to defend our arguments with evidence as simple as that, then I should take the curse,” Elijah tags on dryly. He knows the curse can’t actually be given to him, but he can’t help but poke at the fire.

            Rebekah irritably rolls her eyes and moves across the room to rest her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. The younger vampire is too thin now, most of the blood is gone in her body. “All of you, like Elizabeth said, have too many attachments. All I have is Marcel.”

            From the corner of the room, Marcel makes a face. “Thanks, Bekah,” he says, offended.

            “No, I mean it. I love you, Marcel, but… look at the bigger picture,” she says and there’s nothing in her tone that suggests her mind can be changed. “Nik has Hope, Kol has died too many times already and he has Davina, who needs to be taken care of right now. Elijah has Hayley and he’s set to become the anchor next week. I do not mean to be blunt, but you will bloody die if we do not do this, Elizabeth. Taking yourself away after all we’ve been through? After all we’ve done to keep you safe? I won’t allow it. Nik needs you.”

            Elizabeth feels a knot beginning to swell in her throat as she realizes just how serious Rebekah is about this. For as long as they have known each other, they have always looked out for each other and it seems Rebekah will truly be taking the fall for her so she can live. “Rebekah… I…” she trails off, not knowing what to say.

            “For this entire fight, you have all stuck me on the sidelines and I’m not stupid enough to not understand why. Right next to Elizabeth, I am the one everyone wants to protect because I’m the youngest. But you can’t make decisions for me, not anymore,” Rebekah goes on to say. “Let me do this. It won’t last forever. This is my responsibility.”

            Nobody else in the room can make an argument against hers. She thought through this carefully and now that she sees she has won, she turns to Freya expectantly. The eldest Mikaelson uncrosses her arms and looks down at Elizabeth who seems painfully conflicted. Things weren’t supposed to get this way. After Lyanna’s death, that was supposed to be it. They were supposed to move on and kill Charles…

            “It’s all up to you,” she says. “I won’t do this until you agree.”

            Rebekah’s speech helped bring some clarity to her dying mind. She may not like it, but she has no more time to procrastinate. This is it. “If this is what you want, Rebekah… I will allow the curse to be transferred to you.”

            Rebekah nods her head and turns to Klaus who still stands near the fireplace. “I presume you still have our caskets in the basement?”

            “I will go fetch yours,” he says slowly and almost awkwardly.

            Promptly leaving the room, Elizabeth almost sags in her wheelchair. She hates this. It seems like every victory they get is followed by some kind of tragedy. She weakly rests her head in her hand and she closes her eyes, feeling the desiccation crawl up past her jawline. If Rebekah hadn’t stepped in, she probably would have died overnight. And as she sits silently in her place, she comes to realize what exactly it would have done to her family if she died. She can understand why Klaus was so upset with her and she knows that she was being selfish. This is the only way she can save her life and although she hates it, it’s not just her decision because the end result affects everyone no matter how it turns out. At the sound of wheels rolling into the room, she lifts her head in and eyes the casket sadly. She wishes it didn’t have to be this way.

            Klaus parks it in the center of the room and he pops the lid open, gesturing to Rebekah. This is a difficult moment for her just as it is for everyone else. Many times before, her life has been stolen away from her and for the first time, she is making this choice by herself. No one is forcing her into this situation. She’s choosing to give her life to save someone who she sees as her baby sister. Mustering up the courage, she pushes out a slow exhale of a breath out and she wills herself to be strong as she climbs into her familiar casket. Stiffly, she lies down on the soft bedding and tucks her hair behind her ears. She can do this. This is what she has to do to protect her family from more tragedy and she’s okay with it, no matter what it’s costing her. Edging closer hesitantly, Klaus pushes Elizabeth right up against the casket and she peers down on her sister with tears welling up in her eyes. Shakily, she reaches a hand down and pushes Rebekah’s hair from her face.

            “You are completely insane,” she says with an anxious laugh. Her cheeks are red as her tears slip down them and in her mind that is slipping away from her with each passing second, she wishes she could be stronger.

            Rebekah smiles softly and takes Elizabeth’s hand securely in her own for a brief moment. “As I should be given who I am,” she agrees happily, laughing almost. “This is for the best. I won’t be like this forever. You know Freya will do everything in her power to save me.”

            Walking up to the casket with Davina right by her side, Freya kneels down to the ground and smiles at her sister. They’re all preparing for what’s about to happen in their own ways now. “Once the process starts, we won’t be able to stop it,” she warns. “This is your last chance to change your mind before we start. I’m sure Kol would be willing to trade places.”

            “I’m already in my casket, sister,” Rebekah says only part-way seriously. “I want to do this. I won’t let it be anyone else.”

            Crowding around the casket, the rest of the family says their teary-eyed goodbyes to her. When it comes to Marcel, he bends down to give her one last lingering kiss and he says something in her ear so quietly that no one else can hear it. As it has been said by everyone many times before, this won’t be the last time they will see her, but the pain of saying goodbye still prevails in the innocence of the sacrifice. A life for a life. Balance. Elizabeth wipes another fallen tear with the back of her hand and she smiles once again weakly as she fights to hang on for just a few more minutes. Death is closing in on her now, making it difficult for her to keep her eyes open.

            “Thank you,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

            Rebekah nods, looking up into her brown eyes with a confidence in her own. “Promise me you’ll look after them? Make sure the boys don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone?” She asks, her voice starting to waver. “And promise me you will give Charles hell for me? I’m so sorry I won’t be there to see you get your revenge.”

            “I promise,” Elizabeth confirms. “We’re going to be okay, Rebekah. Don’t worry.”

            Tears begin to wash into Rebekah’s eyes as the weight of what she’s about to do settles in. She forces herself to look away in order to keep herself strong. She’s giving up so much to do this and somehow, she knows this is exactly how it’s supposed to be. She would do anything for her family, even if it means giving up her own life so the others can live.

            “Alright, then,” Freya says slowly. “I need you two to hold hands.”

            Without a single shred of doubt in her mind, Rebekah takes Elizabeth’s hand and they share one last silent conversation. There’s no fear to be found in Rebekah, only bravery and strength. Together, Freya and Davina begin their Latin incantation and through the magic that they cast in unison, Elizabeth feels her hand become fused to Rebekah’s by an unseen force. Their hands slowly begin to glow a dull red and Elizabeth feels a powerful pull coming from within her as the curse drains from her body. Breathing in sharply, she struggles to keep her eyes open. It burns and every nerve in her body feels like it’s being torn apart.

            “I promise you we will find a way to save you,” Elizabeth says through her streaming tears.

            Behind them, their family watches on with tears of their own. It feels like they’re really losing her for good. Rebekah opens her mouth to say her final goodbyes, but a sudden intense pain overcomes her, forcing her back to arch up from the bedding. Groaning, she snaps her head to the side and Elizabeth watches in horror as the desiccation creeps up Rebekah’s neck. She’s nearly gone now, they’re all witnessing her last moments. With one last look, Rebekah’s eyes droop closed and her final breath is pushed from her lungs. Falling limply back into the casket, the glowing between their hands fades away into nothing. Marcel drops to his knees and he strokes Rebekah’s hair as he silently cries. Elizabeth stiffly draws her hand away and looks down at what the curse has done. Rebekah lies still, gray and dead.

            Resting a trembling hand on her shoulder, Klaus pulls on Elizabeth’s attention. She looks up at him and stands from her wheelchair, leaving it behind for another day. Gently, he removes her sling and she extends her arm for the first time in a long while. It would feel so much better if this moment was not tainted by the guilt that she feels. Silently, she turns back to Rebekah and rests her hand on to the lid of the casket, preparing to close it.

            “We will save you, Rebekah,” she promises and everyone can hear the pain and anger in her broken voice.

            Forcing herself to look away, she closes the lid of the casket and moves her hand onto the _M_ that is plastered on top of it. For all of the times that Rebekah has been stuck in this box, somehow this feels like the worst and maybe it has something to do with it being Rebekah’s choice. She will not give up in her anguish and as she walks away, she leaves the room with a single task on her mind. Retribution. She gets about halfway down the hall when a hand stops her and she doesn’t have to look back to know who it is. Heatedly, she jerks her arm free and continues down the hall to her room where she can let herself think. He continues to follow her, of course, he knows better than to leave her alone right now. She’s angry and she has every right to be.

            “Elizabeth, wait,” Klaus attempts, getting nowhere with her.

            Furiously, she shakes her head and she feels her heart struggling to beat in her chest as her emotions run faster than what her body can physically keep up with in her state. “At every turn, Lyanna has found a way to win. She and Charles had Nathan killed. She got to torture me for a week. She killed Davina. And somehow, she found a way to get the upper hand in her own death. Rebekah is stuck in a _damn_ box because of her!” Angrily, she picks up Lyanna’s first grimoire from her desk and she throws it across her room, denting the wall.

            “It had to be done, Elizabeth. You wouldn’t have survived the night. You wouldn’t have been able to survive even an hour more,” Klaus tries to reason. He knows nothing he could say would truly make her feel better. She’s been through too much and he knows doing what she did was difficult on her. “You’ve suffered enough. Don’t let this tear you up. We will save Rebekah. I promise you.”

            Elizabeth wipes her tears away and she falls onto the edge of her bed, too weak to hold herself up anymore. “My mother told me something when I was fighting Lyanna…” she says quietly, sniffling. She needs to get her mind off her angry before she explodes and does something she will regret. “I asked her if I would ever see her again and she told me that in my darkest period, which has still yet to come, I will. Something so awful still rests in my future and… after all I’ve been through, I can’t help but wonder about it. How much more can I go through?”

            Pulling a blood bag out from his back pocket, Klaus sits down beside her and he forces her to take it in her hand. He then gently tucks her hand behind her ear so he can admire her perfect face. Her skin is still tinted with a slight gray but as soon as she takes her first sip of blood, her color returns to her cheeks and the life she has burning inside of her returns to her eyes. She is so much stronger than she knows.

            “Whatever lies in your future, you must know you won’t be going through it alone. The Eston witches practiced precognition, yes, but that doesn’t mean your future is set in stone. The future is constantly changing, _your_ future is constantly changing. Every decision you make changes it,” he says passionately. “Tonight, we passed the curse to Rebekah and she’s going to be like that for a long time. And I know how you feel, Elizabeth. You’re torn apart, you feel like it’s your fault because Lyanna was your sister. But it’s not. It will never be your fault. This all falls on Charles. It was his dark magic that poisoned her. Your future may be dark, but I will always be by your side. You will always have me. I promise.”

            Finishing off the last of the blood, fresh tears fall from her eyes and she looks to him. She loves him more than anything and she never wants to be apart from him, but this life that they live is cruel. There is no forgiveness. Shakily, she reaches out to him and takes his hand, interlacing their fingers together. There’s a spark between them, there always has been. They’re meant to be together. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Klaus,” she whispers. It’s a phrase they’ve said to each other time and time again since she returned home and each time, it carries a heavier weight than the last.

            “All we have in our lives is our promises, love, as dangerous as they are,” he says softly, but he knows she has a tragic point. “Elizabeth, you have been the light in my life that keeps me stable. I could never abandon you. Do you remember the things I told you shortly after we first met?”

            Elizabeth nervously meets his gaze and shakes her head lightly. Her mind is too crowded for her to think clearly. “You’ve said a lot of things to me over the years. Both full of hate and love…”

            “I promised to look after you, I promised to stand beside you, and whether we knew it or not at the time, I promised to love you. Perhaps I haven’t done the best job of keeping you safe and I certainly haven’t stood by your side in the ways I promised I would, but none of that matters now. What matters is what we have now and those promises I made to you still exist today. You have survived five hundred years of life and you will survive five-hundred more because you are _strong_ ,” he says. “I will always be there with you, my love. You will never be alone in your fights. Remember that.”

            Tossing the empty blood bag onto her desk, she crashes against him and he wraps his arms around her securely. For a while, she cries and clutches onto him, letting go of everything she has held onto for the past few weeks. In a moment of brief clarity, she finds his lips and kisses him with so much passion that she almost forgets where she is. She tugs on him and pulls his body against hers, feeling every inch of him that she can. In this space between then, she feels safe. Their life is tragic, but they share it together.

            “When you found out about what I did to your family, you were hurt. You didn’t know if you could trust me and when you were ready to try again, you said you needed me. You needed me to help you,” he says. “Let me help you now, sweetheart.”

            When she nods her head, he pulls away from her and stands from the bed. With a gesture, he takes her into the bathroom where he starts the bathwater and plugs the drain. She watches from the doorway with her arms wrapped around herself. Does this make her weak? To feel all of the guilt, anger, and frustration that she does? Is it wrong for her to hate what has happened to her and everyone in her family? Some would say yes. Some would say that she should be stronger, that after five-hundred years she should be impervious to pain. That’s not the case, though. She has lost more than any one person should, she has been betrayed and lied to. For nearly eleven years, she was tortured by her father and that doesn’t come without trauma. She’s not perfect and even though it’s still a constant battle in her head, she knows it’s okay to be broken. She’s still here and that has to count for something, right? The fight is not over and it may never be, but she’s going to fight until she draws her last breath.

            “Elizabeth?” Klaus calls, trying to get her attention.

            She snaps back into reality and she looks away from the sink to him, blinking the old tears from her eyes. She’s not crying anymore, but some still remained. “Sorry…”

            “I want you to get in,” he says, gesturing to the tub. “I’ll return in a moment.”

            When she nods her head and moves out of the doorway, he blurs out of the bathroom. Slowly, she begins to take her clothes off one by one. She pulls her shirt up and over her head, she unclasps her bra. At her feet, she lazily kicks off her boots and she pushes the rest of it all off until she has nothing. With stiff legs, she climbs into the tub and lowers herself down into the warm water, pulling her knees to her chest. For a while she sits there, just staring at the water, until she hears the bathroom door closing. Klaus moves her clothes to the side with his foot and he sets a bottle of wine down on the edge of her tub followed by two glasses. It’s a bit silly, she thinks, to be drinking wine in a bathtub after what happened today, but she can’t bring herself to think about it for too long. From the counter, he passes her a hair tie and she uses it to tie her hair up into what is probably the worst bun anyone has ever seen.

            “I know what you’re thinking about, darling,” he says, taking his jacket off. “You’re not weak. Everyone has their moments and tonight is one of yours.”

            She watches silently as he strips away his clothes and she scoots forward a bit when he climbs in behind her. It’s been a long while since they’ve done something like this with each other. It’s nice… comforting. When his legs slide in on either side of her and his arms wrap around her waist, she leans back against him and finally allows herself to stretch out. He gently kisses her just above her ear and she focuses hard on his heartbeat, listening to the steady rhythm. He’s so calm… how is he so calm?

            “You know… A long time ago, before I met you, Rebekah once told me that it would be impossible for me to find love because for that to happen, I would have to find someone so evil that they’re my equal and no one is as evil as I am,” he says, bringing his hand up to her locket gently. “You can imagine my confusion when I stumbled upon you.”

            “Maybe I am evil,” she muses, craning her neck to look back at him.

            “You certainly have a devil inside of you, but it would take something truly awful for you to become the monster that I am,” he laughs quietly. “Even so, you’re a beautiful creature, Elizabeth Walker. I have not met many who are like you.”

            Smiling almost, she rests her head against his shoulder as her mind drifts over to Mystic Falls. “Caroline Forbes is an interesting contender. I know you loved her.”

            “My point is,” Klaus says curtly, trying to keep the topic on something he can bear to talk about. “For a long time, I thought it would be best for you to stay away from me. I couldn’t stand the idea of ruining you or getting you killed. It wasn’t until you found your way back to us that I realized you would always come back to me, no matter the circumstances. In a way, you are my equal, you are my other half, but you are also better than me. You possess kindness and you show mercy…”

            “Klaus, you’re not the same monster you used to be,” she says. “You changed because of Hope. You became a better man, someone who feels compassion and has humanity in their bones.”

            Pressing another kiss against her skin, he nods in agreement. “Perhaps… Elizabeth, I know I don’t say it enough to you. I do love you, more than I thought was possible. I won’t rest until you’re back on your feet. As soon as Elijah becomes the anchor, we will handle Charles and you will begin to heal. You’re going to make it.”

            Taking his hand in hers, she thinks for a long time about what killing Charles will do for her. Normally, she wouldn’t resort to killing but Charles is not a man who can be left alive. He has caused too much damage to her and to the many others just like her who still remain in his facility. Killing him will free her of the fear she feels anytime she is left alone. She won’t have to worry about being snatched away again. She may never be truly whole again, but her healing has to start somewhere. And as she relaxes more against Klaus, she lets go of her fears. There’s nothing left in this fight that can harm her. All that’s left to do is seek the revenge she swore to Charles a long time ago. Soon, the darkness that has plagued her family will finally be laid to rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Killing" Rebekah took a lot of thought. I always saw her as a strong character and sacrificing herself was such a power move. 
> 
> It's so crazy to think this story is almost done. I started it so long ago and I never thought it was good enough, but I'm so happy with it. 
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	31. Protected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with the guilt that stems from Rebekah's death, Elizabeth moves forward with her life and prepares to seal Death's tomb for once and for all.

A week goes by without incident.

            Somehow, by some trick of fate, she has managed to keep moving forward despite all that has stood in her way. The devastating guilt of feeling like she’s living in Rebekah’s place… it was a hard adjustment to get around and it still is to this day. Nevertheless, she wakes up today feeling better than she has in a long while. Smoothly, she rolls out from under her warm comforter and her hand grips the edge of the mattress as if to keep herself grounded. She presses her bare feet into the rug on the floor, feeling the softness of it against her toes. Today is another day, just as the ones that came before. Behind her, Klaus continues to sleep soundlessly and although she has moved away from him, he still has his hand wrapped securely around hers. He has been gentle with lately and since they transferred the curse, he has simply refused to sleep in his own bed and he won’t go to sleep without touching her in some way. It brings them both comfort after all they’ve been through lately.

            Last night was really hard on her. She had a terrible nightmare and he helped her through it. He was so attentive to her and his little touches reminded her that it’s going to be okay. She’s still terribly broken after all that she went through under Charles’ care and she has started to wonder if there will ever be a day in which she is whole again. Is that too much to ask? She doesn’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to reach out to Damon Salvatore if time ever allows it. He does, after all, understand what she went through. Sighing quietly, she twists around to look at Klaus and a smile creeps up on her pink lips. She slowly runs her hand through his soft hair, appreciating it before he showers. It’s a mess from all of their tossing and turning last night, but somehow it looks perfect to her. She could never grow tired of seeing him this way. This is how Klaus is supposed to look. At peace, calm, and rested.

            Feeling her delicate touch, Klaus slowly stirs awake and he opens his blue eyes to see the beautiful woman looking down on him. He enjoys waking up beside her. It reminds him that there is still good in the world and that someone is actually crazy enough to love him after all of the terror he has caused in his long life. He surely isn’t deserving of it but, for some reason, Elizabeth Walker has chosen him to be hers. Getting a little idea in his head, he moves impossibly fast and grabs her by the arms. Crushing her perfect body into the mattress, her wonderful giggles ring out into the room and she clutches onto him as he starts to kiss frantically at her neck. He’s marking her up and although the marks won’t last for long on her vampire skin, he does like to see them for a little while.

            “Niklaus, we don’t have time for this today,” she laughs.

            “And when has time ever stopped us before?” He asks, sliding his hands down her body, right down to the waistband of her shorts.

            Pushing up on his shoulders with her strength, she hoists him up and looks at the pouting face he gives her with a pleasant grin. “You know what today is. If it were any other day, I’d gladly stay here with you,” she says. “However, Freya will be pissed if we don’t get downstairs. You know her precise her plans are.”

            Fighting her strength easily, Klaus rolls them over once again and he enjoys the derisive expression she gives him as she straddles his thighs. Slowly, his hands travel from her waist up to the middle of her back and he digs her fingers there, daring her to do something. He wants her to take the bait, to get lost in the sheets with him again. However, he doesn’t get much further than that because she reaches back and pulls his hands off of her body before any more damage can be done. Wordlessly, she climbs off of the bed entirely and pulls the comforter away from him. For only a second, she admires his mostly bare form. One man should not be so attractive.

            “I would say you can join me in the shower, but I’m almost certain we will get nowhere quickly if I do,” she says with a slight bite in her voice. “Feel free to use Elijah’s. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

            “Elizabeth Walker, you will be the death of me,” he says with a smile, propping himself up on his elbows.

            She laughs at his comment and bends down to kiss him softly so he’ll, hopefully, stop complaining so much about her lack of touch this morning. “Wasn’t it I who was supposed to die in this relationship? You’ve only spent the past five-hundred years swearing by it any chance you get.”

            “I’ve fallen in love with a minx,” he jokes lightly, intentionally pushing her buttons. They seem to be in a bickering mood today.

            Making an offended face, she punches his arm and draws back as he winces. “A minx? Is that all I am to you?” She asks in the same manner, walking away from him promptly.

            Before she can ever touch the doorknob to her bathroom, his body appears in front of her and he has his arms crossed over his chest. “Did you not hearing the falling in love bit? Or did you simply ignore it as you do with most of what I tell you?”

            Pushing him aside abruptly, she opens her bathroom door and marches straight to the shower so she can get started with her day. “Sorry? You said something to me?” She asks dumbly, her eyes rolling.

            Klaus closes the bathroom door and he watches her as she slips out of her shorts, being completely shameless about how his eyes roam her figure. “You’re quite the smartass today, aren’t you?” He comments, a scowl on his face.

            Elizabeth turns to him briefly and winks sarcastically. She does often find herself enjoying the power she has over Klaus. Normally, he wouldn’t tolerate attitudes from other people but he seems to always let her have her fun. She supposes it may have something to do with their bond. Within days of knowing each other, they were always at each other’s throats with snide comments and petty arguments that wouldn’t matter come the following morning. Over the last five hundred years, the other people in their lives eventually became used to their bickering. It was just something they did with each other and it never truly went away. Even when their arguments manifested into something painfully real, they would always come back around to their usual habits.

            “If I allow you to join me, can you promise me we’ll be out within a reasonable amount of time?” She asks, turning to him as she pulls off her shirt.

            Klaus gulps quietly at the sight of her, grappling with their important responsibilities today and with what he wants to do to her right now. “Have it your way,” he says after a long pause. Their responsibilities have won this round today. He’s not particularly in the mood to be hexed by Freya if they’re late.

            Elizabeth hums lightly and jumps into the shower, only closing the curtain when he joins in it with her. Paying very little attention to the man behind her, she soaks her thick hair under the water and reaches for her favorite shampoo. She’s about to pour some of it onto her palm, but Klaus’ quick hands take the bottle away from her before she can get too far. About to complain, she looks over her shoulder but the words never leave her mouth. Klaus pours some of the shampoo into his own hand and he gestures for her to turn back around so he can do what he wants to do. Stiffly, she does and her heart flutters when his hands take to her hair. This is the first time he has done this for her, she thinks. It’s an incredibly kind gesture and his fingers are so gentle in her hair that it almost feels like he has done this before.

            “You shed worse than a cat,” Klaus complains as he flicks some of her stray wet hairs from his hand.

            Elizabeth giggles and turns around to rinse the soap out of her hair, working her fingers through it to make sure she gets it all. “You didn’t _have_ to do that, you know,” she points out.

            “Your mood is absolutely awful,” he says, glowering at her.

            Smiling, she leans forward and kisses him gently to stop his complaining before he can get too far into it. “Like you’re any better. We don’t have much time. Hurry up,” she laughs.

            Through many rude comments and intimate touches, they do get through their shared shower in one piece. Which, by all means, should be considered a miracle. Elizabeth has practically had Klaus wrapped around her like a Koala Bear for the past seven days and she thinks Elijah has grown to become quite sick of it. Still, she appreciates it. The next few days are going to be difficult and it’s no secret what kind of risk they’re running by going to Death’s tomb today. Charles is still out there and she can only hope that he has no more tricks up his sleeve. By the time they’re dressed, it’s time to leave. Together, everyone piles into their separate cars and they peel out of the garage just as they have done a million times before. Elizabeth grips the steering wheel and follows the sleek black Porsche, ignoring the way everyone ogles at the BMW she drives. She has never much liked being the center of attention and it is entirely Klaus’ fault for making her drive.

            “You do realize the windows are tinted, correct?” Klaus asks, taking notice of her nervous fidgeting as they come to a stoplight.

            Elizabeth briefly looks over and scowls at it but the look of endearment in his eyes has it melting away. He can be so relentlessly infuriating, yet so caring at the same time and it drives her nuts. “If you wanted to take the BMW, why did you force me into driving it?”

            “Because you were held captive for nearly eleven years and I wanted to make sure you still possessed the ability to drive before I even let you go near your new Jeep,” he clarifies simply and his logic is completely flawed.

“Oh, okay. So, you’d rather I wreck the hundred-thousand-dollar car instead. What’s a hundred-thousand when you have a sixty-thousand-dollar car waiting for you back at home?” She bickers heatedly. “You _do_ realize I’ve been driving since the car was invented, right?”

            “It’s a necessary precaution, love,” Klaus insists.

            Elizabeth scoffs, still not buying into his point of view. “Necessary precaution my ass,” she grumbles darkly.

            Klaus sends her a loathsome glance. Okay, maybe their bickering has reached an unusual point. They’re never this bad with each other, not since the 1800s at least. “I advise you watch your tongue.”

            “Only when necessary,” he says with a light shrug.

            “I will _throw_ you out of this car, Niklaus,” she snaps. “Don’t think that I won’t.”

            From the backseat, Kol groans loudly and leans forward so his face can be seen by both of them. His ears might start to bleed if he lets this continue on for any longer than it already has. “You two fight worse than an old married couple. This is ridiculous,” he complains. “At least get married so there’s a reason for it. You’re already old.”

            Klaus rolls his eyes in agitation and turns to his younger sibling, his eyebrows raised. “And I suppose you and Davina back there never fight?”

            Davina smiles brightly and leans forward also to squeeze in beside her husband. “Oh, no. We fight all the time. You should have heard us last night. Kol was pissed because I fell asleep on his side of the bed and wouldn’t move.”

            Elizabeth grins widely. That’s exactly the kind of ammunition she needed. “So, it’s a Mikaelson thing. I get it now.”

            Klaus makes a blatantly confused face and he makes it obvious that he’s also offended by her accusation. “When have I ever complained about where you’ve fallen asleep?” He demands. “It’s a blessing to get you to fall asleep. You’re worse than a small child.”

            “Uh, you pretty much did it two nights ago when you shoved me over to my side and threatened to go sleep in your bed if I don’t give you more room,” Elizabeth says, laughing heatedly as her frustration bubbles just under her skin.

            Kol and Davina swap expressions, becoming increasingly worried about their anger towards each other. Clearing his throat, Kol decides to be the brave one. “Here’s an idea, why don’t we stop talking until we get there?” He offers in a kind voice as he eases back into his seat.

            There are just about a million and one things Klaus would love to say to fuel this argument, but he simply refuses to engage in something that makes him out to be the boyfriend that he most certainly is not. Instead, he peers out the window and tunes out Elizabeth completely as she starts up a conversation with Davina. They’re no longer in town anymore. No, they left that behind a half-hour ago. Elizabeth then follows the Porsche onto a poorly maintained dirt road and she breathes a sigh of relief as she realizes the BMW is an all-wheel-drive car. When the car in front of them presses on their brakes, she does so too and kills the engine. Stiffly, she exits the car and shoves her hands deep into her pocket as she shivers in the unusual chill that blows through the air around them. Elijah smoothly hops out of his car and he looks back to her, nodding his head once.

            “We’re just about there,” he says. “The entrance to the tomb should be a little ways into the woods. Freya will lead us.”

            Elijah points a little way down a path that doesn’t exist to anyone who isn’t looking for it. Freya and Nathan soon climb out of the Porsche too and on their shoulders, they wear backpacks. Leaving Klaus behind, Elizabeth scurries over to join beside her brother. They haven’t spent too much time together lately. Together, the group marches through the trees and they follow every step of direction that Freya calls out as she feels the traces of dark magic in the air. Shivering once more, Elizabeth hugs her arms around herself and she looks to Freya curiously.

            “Why is it so cold here?” She asks.

            “It’s not necessarily cold. It’s the psychological impact that Death has on all of us,” she explains and there’s an uncomfortable expression on her face. “The forces that are keeping him locked away are so thin now that his presence is seeping out through the cracks. There’s no hope in this area. It’s all dead.”

            The explanation makes Elizabeth feel sick to her stomach. She can only imagine how bad things would have become if Lyanna was successful in setting him free. “That’s disturbing.”

            Freya nods her head in agreement. “It’s worse for humans. Vampires aren’t as affected by it because all of you are already dead. It’s harder for him to reach you. Witches can sometimes be immune to him too depending on the purity of their magic and how strong they are. Your sister was a powerful witch, but her magic was dark and she was corrupted.”

            Almost abruptly, Freya stops walking then and she looks around in bewilderment, making the others stop as well. Elizabeth watches her carefully as she looks around the area and she follows her when she walks over to a tall wall of stone that stretches upwards into the sky as a cliff. There are several symbols carved into the stone, something that was put there a long time ago, and Freya reaches out to touch them with her fingertips. Upon impact, she hisses in pain and snaps her hand back as the symbol she touched burns her.

            “The entrance to the tomb should be here,” she says. “I don’t understand.”

            Elizabeth looks around the area they stand in as she begins to feel something shift in the air and she spots a similar symbol on a nearby boulder. She walks over to it and touches it, alarmed when the ground beneath her falls away as if it had never been there. Gasping, she falls several feet into the darkness and when her back meets the cold, wet ground, she groans. Blinking, she pushes herself up on her elbow and coughs as she tries to wave away the dirt and dust clouds that float in the air.

            “Elizabeth, are you alright?” Elijah calls from the edge of where she fell, peering down on her.

            Looking upwards, she nods her head. “I think I found a way in,” she coughs roughly. Grimacing, she reaches over to her right arm and snaps the bone back into place. She winces and cringes at how nasty the crunching sound was. Being a vampire is great, but she would be much happier if her bones snapped back into place themselves.

            Holding onto Freya, Elijah jumps down and soon the rest of the family joins them. Freya rummages around in her bag for flashlights and she passes a few around to the waiting hands who all switch them on immediately. Elizabeth shines hers around the underground space, finding a tunnel that goes deeper in. It’s colder down here than it was up above and there’s a thick coating of ice on almost everything. With the help of Klaus’ hand, Elizabeth picks herself up from the ground and tries to dust away the dirt that clings to her clothes. She curses lightly when she notices a tear on the left thigh of her new jeans.

            “Why did touching the symbol work for Elizabeth and not you, Freya?” Nathan asks.

            “It may have something to do with bloodlines,” Freya guesses as she zips her jacket up to the top. “From what I know, most of the Walker witches were always heavy supporters of Death. Elizabeth is Lyanna’s equal, so maybe it gave her some kind of pass. I think we found an alternate way to access his tomb. I doubt Lyanna had to go through that every time she came to speak with him.”

            That’s basically the best answer either of them is going to get. Shivering, Elizabeth nods and follows Elijah further into the tunnel with Nathan walking right beside her almost protectively. The closer they get to the tomb door, the colder it seems to get for all of them. She can see her breath now and as she looks up to Nathan, she can see how red his face has become. Coming up on the end, they enter a room that has a few flickering torches in it from Lyanna’s last visit. Freya turns off her flashlight and so does everyone else, leaving the torches to provide their light. This room is the coldest thing Elizabeth has felt and she shivers, zipping up her winter coat. The furthest wall in front of them appears to be the wall they’re looking for. On it, there are many spells etched into the stone and in the center is a stone doorway that looks to be sealed. Elizabeth walks forward and gently touches one of the symbols, feeling the magic that comes off of it. It’s dark and it makes her feel twisted on the inside. It’s almost as if the magic is daring her to do something, begging her to set Death free.

            “Does it creep anyone else out that on the other side of the door… there’s Death?” She asks as she moves to stand in front of the only thing that is keeping Death locked away. She can feel him calling out to her and he’s angry, begging to be let out. He wants to feed on all of them, to cure the hunger that burns inside of him.

            Nathan eagerly nods his head in agreement. For a while, he thought he was the only one who was thinking about that. “No, it creeps me out too. I can’t believe only a stone wall is keeping him from destroying the world.”

Freya kneels down to the ground and starts pulling things out of her backpack, everything that she needs for the spells she has to do. “Magic is a powerful tool. As soon as Elijah becomes the anchor, nothing should be able to break these locks ever again. Death will never be set free.”

            “What do you need me to do, Freya?” Davina asks.

            “Just hang tight. We’ll get started in a minute.”

            Elizabeth sighs quietly and perches herself on a nearby boulder. She’s not used to feeling so much dread and hopelessness in one room. It makes her uncomfortable and it reminds her of her days locked in her cell. She ran out of hope back then and she doesn’t like that Death can so easily make her feel like she’s gone back there. Shuddering, she wraps her arms around herself and jumps a little when another bone in her body snaps back into place from her fall. Freya continues to set up and when she is ready, she and Davina walk to the wall side by side and they both put their palms against it. In synch, they start chanting spells in old Latin, some repeating two or three times. Elizabeth pays close attention to the subtle changes around her as she locks begin to seal once again. The chill begins to disappear and the ice has started to melt on the walls.

            And as weird as it is, Elizabeth begins to feel something lift inside of herself as well. With Davina and Freya locking Death’s door once again, she feels like a weight is being lifted off her shoulders. Blinking, she narrows her eyes on the door and realizes something truly awful. Death had been reaching out to her this entire time. Her connections to Lyanna were so deeply rooted inside of her that Death had been calling out to her just as much as he had been with her sister. She gulps past the uncomfortable knot her throat that grows to be more painful the longer she thinks on this. What kind of monster would she have become if she had listened to the calls? Would she have become something as cruel as Charles? Or something as wicked as Lyanna? Maybe she would have become a mixture of them both. Blinking back the hot tears that well up in her eyes that are brought on by her frustration, she clears her throat quietly and shifts her gaze away from the door.

            “Are you alright, Elizabeth?” Klaus asks, sensing that there is something wrong with her.

            She shakes her head, giving him the cold shoulder. “I’m fine, Klaus,” she says through a clenched jaw.

            “Love, the color has completely drained from your face,” he points out, pushing her buttons yet again. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

            Angrily, she snaps her eyes to his and glowers at him. “ _I said it’s fine_.”

            Kol groans from the other side of the tomb and suddenly he’s standing directly beside them. “Nik, give her some space, yeah?” He offers and when Klaus shoves past him, Kol shakes his head. He then looks to Elizabeth and takes a seat beside her.

            “I’m fine, Kol,” she says in a softer tone as she forces herself to calm down. “It’s just… being so close to Death… It’s making me uneasy.”

            Kol looks between her and the door, calling her bluff almost immediately. “He was reaching out to you, wasn’t he?”

            Elizabeth fearfully sends a quick glance over to Klaus, knowing that he’s listening to every word they’re saying. “Yes. I’m a vampire, but I’m Lyanna’s equal. I think he’s been calling out to me for as long as I’ve been alive, but it became worse Lyanna started breaking the locks. I didn’t realize.”

            “Look on the bright side, Liz,” Kol offers. “The door is being locked and it’s being locked for good. He won’t be able to reach out to you anymore. Freya is adding extra spells to ensure that. It’s gonna be over soon.”

            Although she remains quite uncertain, she nods her head. She has to have trust in that or else she will never move on from it. Once Elijah becomes the anchor, she won’t have to fear Death and his hellfire anymore. He may have been reaching out to her all of this time, but her never listening to him says a lot about her. There were so many times in the past when she could have fallen into his grasp and she resisted it, even if she was unsure of what she had been fighting. This entire time she thought it was just her inner darkness and although that darkness may still remain, Death no longer has his hooks in her. It’s just her now and her own personal demons. And with time? Those demons will get easier to handle. All she needs is time now. Taking a deep breath, she looks up to Freya and watches as the witch pulls away from the wall as her nose begins to bleed. She staggers but keeps her ground. Davina pulls away too and she puts her hand on Freya’s shoulder, trying to keep her steady. The magic hadn’t affected her as bad and she supposes she has her newfound vampiric abilities to thank for that.

            “The locks have been sealed,” Freya says with a tired huff. She’s surprised she had enough power inside of her to handle something like this. “It’s time to establish the anchor so they stay that way. Can you come here, Elijah?”

            Nodding, Elijah removes his suit coat, passing it to Klaus as he goes, and he rolls up his sleeves to his elbows. By request, he offers Freya his right hand and she pulls out a pocket knife from her bag, bringing it to his waiting palm. As she slices into his flesh, she closes her eyes and mutters an incantation over and over again under her breath. Moving at a practiced pace, she places Elijah’s cut hand against the stone door and his blood seeps down into the carvings, glowing brilliantly in the dimly lit space. Magic overcomes him then, almost like he’s being fused to the door, and he drops down to his knee, groaning in intense pain. Elijah has felt a great deal of pain in his long life, but somehow this is different. It’s darker and it’s going straight to his core. Freya’s hands begin to shake violently as she continues on and Elizabeth watches as Elijah’s eyes glow the familiar red that she saw only a handful of times in her sister’s eyes before she was killed. The burning torches in the area flicker, some even blow out, and as Freya’s complicated words come to a slow end, the chill that had surrounded them virtually disappears completely.

            “It’s done,” she says, voice hoarse. She looks exhausted now. “No witch will be able to unlock Death’s tomb unless they find a way to permanently kill Elijah. Should that happen, the anchor will be moved to another host.”

            Breathing heavily, Elijah forces himself to his feet and he looks at his palm as the gash seals. “That was extraordinarily unpleasant.”

            “What’s done is done, then,” Klaus speaks up as he passes his brother his coat back. “Now that both Lyanna and the threat of Death raining hell upon us all has been handled, I do suggest we plan our attack against Charles.”

            Davina shakes her head, looking to the hybrid distastefully. “Do you ever take breaks? Freya is about ready to fall over.”

            Elijah slips back into his coat, watching Elizabeth’s face carefully. “No, I do believe Niklaus is right in this matter. Not only has Charles harmed Elizabeth, but he has other vampires and werewolves in his facility that are enduring the same kind of treatment she went through. I would like to liberate them and get them the help they need.

            Kol, who had been sitting on a nearby boulder beside Davina, stands with his hands in his pockets. “If we mean to kill Charles, who’s to say he won’t come back like Lyanna did?”

            “I’ve been reading through both Lyanna and Charles’ journals,” Freya says. “Charles is a little different. Unlike Lyanna, he was not a chosen servant, nor was he resurrected by Death. He just acted like he was. Lyanna resurrected him with Death’s magic, but he was born into a new body. If we kill him, he will stay dead.”

            Elizabeth shoves her hands into her pockets, looking at the faces of her family. “I promised Charles that I would take away everything away from him,” she says. “But I also owe it to everyone who is still trapped there. We have to do this. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

            “Then we go home and make a plan,” Elijah agrees.

            And as he leads the way out of the cave, Elizabeth leaves a part of herself behind. She is no longer afraid of the terrors that linger in the shadows. The revenge she is bringing to Charles’ front door is not about her anymore. Yes, she suffered, but she has grown from it. It made her stronger and it pushed her into the mindset she needed to be in to win this war. This is about liberation and ending the tragic story she started five hundred years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry it's taking me forever to get these chapters up. I've been so busy lately and I'm trying super hard to find some time to write. Hopefully, I'll catch a break soon.
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	32. Final Stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time has come for Elizabeth to seek her revenge against Charles Richardson.

Nathan shifts his exhausted eyes up to the ceiling for a brief moment, the bags under them seemingly growing darker by the second.

            “You have an easy job. The rest of us have to get around his hybrids,” he sighs, rubbing his forehead. “I wasn’t there for long, but I saw enough to know what’s up. He’s probably been preparing for an attack since I busted you out in July.”

            Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest, taking a deep breath. Today has been nothing short of tedious. “His hybrids won’t be a problem for Elijah, Kol, or Klaus. The rest of us will just have to be careful. Elijah went over the plan at least ten times by now. It’s solid.”

            “We’re also going to have to be careful with the prisoners. Out of all of them, you definitely were treated the worst by a long shot but that doesn’t dismiss what the others have gone through. They won’t want to trust us,” he then tags on, feeling anxious.

            “Josh and Marcel will make sure they get to safety. Cami will be there with them to make sure they get the help that they need,” Elizabeth reminds him, hoping to ease his anxiety.

            Nathan finally takes in a deep breath as he attempts to clear his relentlessly crowded mind. He hates that they don’t have more time to think this plan through. He understands why Elijah and Elizabeth want to get this done as soon as possible, but they would be better off if they thought about what they’re doing for at least another week. “I hope we can pull this off. I think we know by now to not underestimate Charles.”

            Elizabeth hands her head for a brief moment. Ever since she got away from her father, she has thought about killing him almost every single day. She has practically fantasized about getting her revenge and having Klaus as a lover has only fueled her determination to get this done and over with. Charles stole so much away from her and she's done playing games. No matter how tonight plays out, she can go through it knowing that she lived up to her promise to him. Charles will get what's coming for him. His punishment is long overdue. It doesn’t have to be brutal. It doesn’t have to be poetic. All she wants is to say the things that have been bouncing around in her mind and to make sure he can never hurt another person ever again.

            “Our father is an evil man, Nathan, but that’s all he is. A man with a fortress. Lyanna was the real mastermind behind his methods. Without her, he has nothing. We have the upper hand now and we can end this,” she says reassuringly. “I won’t stop fighting until he’s dead.”

            “I know. That’s what I admire about you. You’re strong,” he says with a fond smile.

            Elizabeth shares a smile with him as well, feeling a fleeting happiness inside of her. She picks herself up from the couch and walks across the room to her little brother, pulling him into her strong arms for a secure hug. “Just promise me you’ll stay by Elijah, alright? I don’t want to lose you again. We stay with our teams. No matter what.”

            “Who are you sticking by, then?” He asks innocently.

            Elizabeth draws back with a smirk and she puts her hands on her right hip, cocking herself to the side. “Like you actually have to ask. Klaus has been promising me he will rip off Charles’ head ever since I came home. He and I will be going straight to Charles together. Davina will be with Kol and Freya will be with Cami.”

            Nathan laughs and glances at the clock on the wall that seems to be ticking a little too slowly now that the time to get going is getting closer. He’s eager to get out there and finish this fight. “So, it’s settled, then. Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I know he’s a dick, but he’s our father.”

            “I’ll be fine, Nate,” she laughs nervously. “He caused my family a lot of pain. He’s the reason why Lyanna turned dark and the reason why my mother was always so terrified. I won’t leave his facility tonight until I know he’s dead. Regardless, I got a little brother out of him. That’s something to be happy about.”

            “You do realize I’m a grown man, right?” He asks, beaming.

            “Yeah, come talk to me when you’re five-hundred and twenty-two,” she jokes, running a hand through her hair.

            From behind her, Elijah walks into the room carrying a thick book in his hands. He seems to be acutely unaware of the other people who are also in the room and Elizabeth raises her eyebrow curiously, trying to see what on earth he could be reading that has him so distracted. Turning, she crosses her arms over her chest and waits for him to stop walking before speaking out to him.

            “What are you reading?” She asks. “That book looks as old as you.”

            “It’s a book on various methods of resurrection. I procured it from my mother’s belongings,” he says lightly and he doesn’t bother to explain why he’s reading such a thing. “Hayley and Hope will be returning to us next week.”

            Elizabeth makes a relieved face, pleased to finally hear the news. She was starting to wonder if they would ever return. “That’s great. Klaus has been missing Hope like crazy. I think that’s partly why he’s been so irritable. But why February? That's still two months out. Isn't it safe enough for them to return after Charles is dead?”

            “Yes,” Elijah says curtly, his eyes never leaving the worn pages. "Niklaus is being rather protective over Hope and it would seem my niece has started to make friends in Mystic Falls. She is, apparently, rather fond of Caroline's daughters and the Salvatore brothers. The decision was not mine to make." 

            Elizabeth exchanges a brief look with her brother and it seems he’s just as put off by Elijah’s distracted mood as she is. Clearing her throat, she takes a half-step closer to the Original, trying to get a closer look at the cover of the book. “Elijah, _why_ are you reading a book about resurrection methods?”

            “I have a suspicion. No need to worry about it now,” he says bluntly, completely dodging around the question. “How are you and Niklaus doing? I haven’t heard you two argue all morning.”

            A little caught off guard by the subtle complexity of the question, Elizabeth leans up against the desk and she tries not to pay attention to the way Nathan watches her face. “We doing better. Irritable and a little sick of each other, maybe. He and I have been spending so much time together and we’re both focused on ending this fight with Charles. We’ll be fine as soon as my father is dead and we can move on with our lives. He’s just worried about me.”

            Elijah finally meets her gaze and he closes the old book, crossing one leg over the other. “My brother loves you a great deal, as I’m sure you know. Now that he has you, he doesn’t want to lose you. I believe his irritability and relentless need to argue with you lately is a projection of that.”

            Elizabeth nods her head knowingly, feeling her heart sink a little. She wishes things didn’t have to be so complicated. “I know. You know I have always loved him. We’ll get through this.”

            Nathan awkwardly clears his throat and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his zip-up hoodie as if to make himself seem more casual. “I know I’m not some thousand-year-old vampire with a shit ton of life experience and knowledge, but it’s normal for couples to hit rough patches like this. You two have been around each other for five-hundred years. If you two didn’t get sick of each other every once in a while, I’d be worried. Being irritable and hostile with each other is completely normal, _especially_ for a couple of hot-headed vampires. If he’s worried about you and if he hasn’t pissed you off too much already, then just show him you’re not going to go anywhere tonight. I have a feeling that’s what bugs him the most.”

            Smiling softly, Elizabeth agrees. “He and I will be just fine. Like I said, we just need to handle this Charles issue. He’s so worried that my father is going to kill me or something that he can’t think straight. He’s so hell-bent on keeping me safe that he’s having a hard time seeing what’s going on around him. And that doesn’t even begin to cover how much stress he feels when it comes to keeping Hope safe and out of this.”

            “Let us all be glad he hasn’t tried to send you away for your own good again,” Elijah jokes lightly. “I’m not sure how Rebekah would feel if she woke up and you were gone again after having saved your life.”

            “How is Freya doing on that by the way? Has she found a way to break the curse?” Elizabeth asks curiously.

            Sadly, Elijah shakes his head and his eyes shift to the floor. “She and Davina are doing everything they can. Rebekah will remain with the curse for a little while longer.”

            Elizabeth is about to ask more questions, but she is promptly cut off by Klaus bursting into the room. Immediately, his obvious frustrated attitude makes her want to twist her face into a scowl but she fights it off. Sure, they may be a little sick of each other and focused on the goal in front of them, but she still loves him more than anything. They can bicker and fight about stupid things all they want but what they really need right now is each other’s support. She has to show him that she’s going to be okay. Charles won’t get to her again.

            “May I have a moment alone with Elizabeth?” He asks calmly.

            Almost as if he is afraid to be around Klaus for a second longer than he has to, Nathan zaps out of the room and is soon followed by Elijah who resumes his reading as he walks out. When they’ve both gone, Klaus closes the doors to the study and turns to face Elizabeth with a hauntingly blank expression on his tired face. The stress is most definitely getting to him now, she can see it in his wonderfully blue eyes. She can’t be upset with him now, not anymore and not over nothing. She’s tired of the bickering and arguing. They promised each other that they would get each other through this and she intends to keep that promise. All they have in this long, tragic life of theirs is their promises to each other.

            “Talk to me,” she beckons gently.

            Stiffly, he takes a seat on the couch and briefly rubs his chin, not really looking at her. “You know what we need to discuss. You and my brother seem to have no problem discussing it out in the open.”

            Elizabeth sighs and looks down at her feet anxiously. “I’m sorry. He asked. We’ve been fighting too much, Klaus. We’re letting the stress get to us.”

            “I think the entirety of the French Quarter knows that by now, sweetheart.”

            Taking a deep breath, she pushes away from the desk and takes it upon herself to take a seat directly beside the man she loves. If she were to get any closer to his body, she’d be sitting on his lap. Taking his soft hand in hers, she rubs her thumb against the back of his hand and tries to find the right words inside of her to tell him. She doesn’t want to go after Charles tonight knowing that he is angry at the world and worried for her life. She needs him to go in with a clear head. That’s the only way both of them will come out of what they’re about to do alive.

            “I’m going to be okay, Klaus. Charles _can’t_ hurt me anymore,” she says strongly. “He lost that ability when I broke free and found my way home. And tonight? You and I are going to make sure he can never hurt another person again. We’re going to make this right. For Hope, for me, and for our family.”

            His grip tightens around her hand and after a long while, he willingly meets her searching eyes. She’s saying a lot to him without saying anything at all. He has always appreciated that about her eyes and sometimes, they always find a way to tell him just what he needs to hear to understand. She’s full of life and emotion… he loves her for it.

            “How can you be so sure?” He asks warily.

            Elizabeth squeezes his hand tightly and with her other, she lightly touches the locket that hangs around her neck. “Because I’ll have you there. You won’t let him hurt or anyone else hurt me. Before I met you, my father was always terrified of the great Niklaus Mikaelson, the Original Hybrid. Whatever happens tonight, we’ll do it together. It’s going to be alright.”

            Because she knows him entirely too well, Elizabeth leans in close to close the gap in between them and she kisses his lips softly, trying her best to convey her emotions to him. She knows how difficult the last few months have been on them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what the fear of losing your loved ones for months on end can do to a person. Since she broke free and came home, all she has ever wanted to do is end this fight so she and her family can go back to living their lives. Now, she’s not dumb enough to believe that this will be the last fight they will ever face. No, that’s not the case at all. There will be more and Lyanna’s possible contingency plans are still burning a hole in the back of her mind but at least after they finish off Charles, they can recuperate and get their bearings again.

            “I love you, Klaus. I know we’ve been going through a rough patch, I know we’re going crazy, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you,” she says passionately after a long pause. “We’re going to be okay.”

            Klaus smiles softly and searches in her eyes for a moment. The little black box in the inner pocket of his coat has never weighed heavier. “Still haven’t changed your mind, then?”

            Laughing softly, Elizabeth playfully rolls her eyes. “No. I’m still sure about being with you but we can talk more about that later. We have to get ready. Meet me on the main floor in an hour or so?”

            Klaus nods and when she gets up to walk away, she finds a confidence within herself that hadn’t been there before. Tonight, she will finally end the haunting chapter of her life that has taken control of her for the last eleven years.

            “You’re completely clear on the plan, correct?”

            Elizabeth pulls her thick hair back into a high ponytail and she nods her head, making it bob up and down. “Klaus and I will be going straight for Charles. The rest of you are handling the prisoners and the guards.”

            “Under no circumstances will you leave my brother’s side,” Elijah orders strongly and the tone of his voice almost terrifies her. “I will not have anything happen to you tonight, not after all we’ve been through to keep you safe.”

            With a soft smile on her cheeks, Elizabeth reaches out and she gently rests her hand on Elijah’s arm to reassure him. She understands why he, amongst the others, is worried about her. So many things could go wrong in an instant. “Everything will be fine, Elijah. We all know Klaus won’t let me disappear again.”

            Elijah goes to say more on the matter, but the sight of Nathan running back to them with a triumphant grin on his face has him stopping. Elizabeth looks to a little brother and when he holds up a small chunk of metal that once belonged to something else, she understands what has him so happy. He did it.

            “The security system is handled. Charles and his guards will be completely blind,” he explains as he chucks the metal elsewhere into the woods.

            “Did you have any trouble?” Elizabeth asks.

            Nathan shakes his head. “None at all. I know that place like the back of my hand. All I had to do was get around a couple of the guards and from there it was a piece of cake.”

            At the sound of footsteps approaching from all around her, Elizabeth takes in a deep breath. It’s finally time. Klaus appears first and he’s wearing a dark jacket, something that vaguely matches the one she is wearing. He reaches out to her and gently cups the side of her face, silently promising her that no matter what happens tonight, they will come out on top. She nods her head and turns to the others once they’ve formed themselves into a small group. Everyone and their partners are standing side by side and their faces show nothing but determination. It’s time to get their revenge.

            “We all have our jobs,” Elijah says loudly enough for himself to be abundantly clear. “Should any of us find ourselves in trouble, you know the signal. Our primary focus is breaking the prisoners out. Elizabeth and Niklaus will handle Charles.”

            Before anyone can peel off to get started, Elizabeth steps forward and away from Klaus so they will all look at her. She needs to say something before it’s too late. Who knows if she will see these faces again by the end of the night? “Whether I knew it or not, I have been fighting my father and my sister for as long as I have been alive. For a long time, I believed that this fight we are fighting was only mine to take on. That has never been the truth. This is our fight and we need to win it not only for me – not only for the prisoners – but for Rebekah as well. She wanted to be here tonight,” she says. “We have the numbers and strength. All he is now is a man hiding in his fortress.”

            Standing beside Freya, Cami smiles discreetly to herself. After months and months of suffering, she can see now that Elizabeth is not the broken and terrified woman she was when she first returned home to the Mikaelsons. No, Elizabeth has grown and has pushed through her trauma to get to where she is today. She is strong and she is fearless. She is everything she is supposed to be and it makes Cami proud to see how far she has come since their first meeting.

            “Enough chit chat. I do believe we have a man to kill and some prisoners to liberate,” Klaus says in his usual, irritable tone.

            Zapping off in all different directions, the group breaks up in the woods. Elizabeth runs alongside Klaus at an impossible speed and when they reach the familiar chain link fence, they jump over it with ease. Immediately, the guards who have been surveying the area notice their unpermitted presence and they charge at them with ravenous intent. Sprinting, Elizabeth skillfully drops down to her knees and slides on the gravel, tearing into the knees of her jeans. Moving in a blur, she trips one of the human hybrids that charge that them and is fast to move out of the way. The hybrid crashes to the ground and he grabs her by her ponytail, yanking her head violently so her neck is exposed to him. Grunting as he bears his venom-filled fangs, she grabs the man’s arm and pulls it back with most of her strength until she hears it snap. Using her one moment of brief opportunity, she swings herself up and onto her feet and she snaps his neck, letting his body fall back to the ground with a dull thud. Klaus, who had previously been taking on two of the other hybrids himself, flicks the blood off of his hands and flicks the blood off of his hands. He looks to Elizabeth with a proud grin and she rolls her eyes, knowing that he is enjoying himself just a little too much.

            “We need to get inside. Once we’re there, it should be a straight shot to Charles,” she says with a casual gesture.

            Klaus nods simply and together, they take off again. The guard who had been standing beside the back entrance growls at them and braces for their attack, but she never gets the chance to pounce on them. Klaus easily rips her head out and meanwhile, Elizabeth uses the woman’s keycard to unlock the door. Now inside of the building, Elizabeth can hear the familiar moans of pain and screams from the prisoners. She freezes in the hallway, feeling her heart skip a beat as a sickening feeling creeps up her spine. There’s a smell in the air, one that she recognizes all too well. It’s thick and it makes her stomach twist into knots. It’s the smell of bleach and underneath it is the blood and chemicals that anyone with a supernatural sense of smell could pick up on. She hates it and it reminds her of her time in own cell.

            “Sweetheart, we need to keep moving,” Klaus urges gently as he places his hand on her lower back. He can see the devastating fear washing into her eyes. It’s taking control of her, forcing her back into her old mindset of being terrified of this place. “Come on, love.”

            Blinking, she clears all of her thoughts from her mind except for one. Klaus is right. They have to keep moving before more of the hybrids can show up and try to stop them from doing what they came here to do. She won’t let Charles get away with all that he has done. Forcing a deep breath in through her lungs, she marches forward and rounds the sharp corner that leads into the first hallway doors. At the opposite end are four more waiting hybrids, all ready to put their lives on the line to defend their boss and creator. Elizabeth looks at each of them carefully, taking in their size and their held weapons that are for sure laced with high-potency werewolf venom. She has fought Charles’ men enough to expect nothing less.

            “How would you like to handle this?” She asks Klaus, smirking a little.

            “Violently.”

            “Why am I not surprised?”

            Trying to get a head start on her, Klaus charges first and Elizabeth can’t help but giggle to herself. Soon, she joins him and she uses her heavily trained agility to her advantage when the largest man in the group tries to grab for her neck first. Pushing off from the wall, she flips through the air onto his shoulders seemingly effortlessly and she locks her fingers under his chin, pulling back as he thrashes desperately around. With the silver blade he holds in his hand, he stabs her deeply in her thigh and Elizabeth curses loudly, but she never falters from her task. No longer wasting time, she pulls as hard as she can until she hears his neck snap and she pushes off of him before his body falls to the ground. Hissing in pain, she brings her hands to the gushing wound on her thigh and she rips the blade out as her hand trembles. Doing her best to examine it in the dim light, she peels her torn jeans away from the wound.

            “Werewolf venom?” Klaus asks simply as he plunges his hand into the chest of a woman who thought she was lucky enough to have a shot at him. Klaus is much too fast and way too strong. She should have known better.

            “Yes… and a lot of it,” she answers dryly.

            From within his coat pocket, Klaus pulls out a small vial of blood and he tosses it to her with a knowing glimmer in his perfect eyes. “Drink up.”

            Catching the vial easily, she snaps off the top and pours the contents into her mouth. Right away, she begins to feel better and the wound on her thigh begins to close up. Limping a little, she walks to the second-floor cellblock door and she hesitates before grabbing onto the handle. That relentless fear is threatening to burst through her again, but she can’t let herself be afraid of the things she may instead of the cell-block. Yes, she lived through it and she suffered but that doesn’t matter right now. Forcing herself to be strong, she rips the door open and is pleased to see Nathan and Cami are both already scrambling to rip open the cell doors to get to the prisoners inside of them. Elizabeth does her best to not look at the faces of the prisoners, but she can’t help it. Their faces are haunting and she wonders if this is how she looked when Nathan saw her for the first time. At the end of the row of used cells, she catches sight of a mother and her young child huddled together in a cell. Just the mere sight of them makes Elizabeth feel sick to her stomach and it takes every fiber of strength to keep herself held together. The child can’t be older than six years old and she’s crying, begging to understand what’s happening.

            Unable to walk away from them, Elizabeth goes straight over to their cell door and she grasps the metal rods, ignoring the way they burn into her skin, and she pulls with all of her strength until the lock breaks. The door slides open loudly and she drops down to her knee, shrugging out of her jacket.

            "My name is Elizabeth Walker. My family and I are here to break all of you out and get you to safety,” she says to the mother as she carefully sets her jacket around the shoulders of the young girl. “We’re going to get you help. It’s going to be okay.”

            The mother stares back at Elizabeth with tears slipping down her cheeks and she holds her daughter close, rubbing her back. “Thank you, Elizabeth. Were you a prisoner here?”

            Elizabeth nods stiffly. “For nearly eleven years. I came back to put a stop to all of this. Keep your daughter close and let us help you. You don’t have to suffer anymore.”

            Although she is fragile and weak, the little girl breaks away from her mother’s hold and rushes to Elizabeth to give her a small hug. Elizabeth is shocked at first and she wraps her arms around the girl’s unhealthily thin frame, holding her close.

            “You’re my hero,” she says.

            Elizabeth smiles awkwardly and pulls back, pushing the girl’s hair away from her dirty face. “No, sweetheart, You’re _my_ hero, kid. You’re so strong.”

            From behind them, Klaus walks up to Elizabeth and he places his hand on her shoulder delicately as if to not startle her. It makes him infuriated to see that Charles held children here, just as he had tried to do with his own daughter, but he can’t let his anger blind him right now. “Elizabeth, we must keep going.”

            Swallowing past the knot in her throat, Elizabeth nods and turns to leave before she can convince herself to stay with the mother and child. She’s angry now, fueled by nothing but her revenge. She always suspected Charles held children here, but she never imagined he would capture children as young as that little girl. Struggling to breathe, she slams past an old wooden door that leads out into another hallway full of more doors and she goes straight to the one she needs just as Elijah and Marcel run past them covered in blood.

            “This is it,” she says darkly.

            With a violent force, Elizabeth kicks in the office door and it cracks loudly against the wall. Charles is sat at his desk peacefully and he loops up to her, a look of dread on his face. He knew this moment was coming and he would have run for his life if he knew there was a tangible chance for him to survive what’s happening out in his facility. Elizabeth smirks brilliantly at him and she enters the office swiftly, taking a seat on the chair that is sat in front of his large, wooden desk. Hanging around casually in the background, Klaus walks around the office quietly and he takes a look at the many files Charles’ keeps on his shelves like trophies, most of which are all about Elizabeth’s time in this facility. Charles leans back in his chair, his blue eyes flickering between the two proud intruders. Elizabeth comfortably crosses one leg over the other, resting her arms on the armrests. It brings her great pleasure to know she has the upper hand in this situation. Charles can’t run from her, not with Klaus here.

            “You’re not a stupid man, Charles,” she says after a long silence. “I’m going to assume you know what’s happening out in your facility right now?”

            Charles removes his reading glasses, setting them beside his open journal. “I suspect your poor excuse of a family is freeing my subjects from their cells?” He guesses blandly. He knows exactly what’s happening to his work tonight. He knew it was coming the second he felt his connection to Lyanna fade out.

            Elizabeth purses her lips, nodding along slightly. “That would be correct. And do you know who this man is?” She then asks smartly, pointing to Klaus.

            Almost unwilling, Charles looks over to him and a subtle fear can be seen behind the burning hatred in his smoldering eyes. Minding his business, Klaus continues to read through a case file and it’s clear he’s angry by what he finds inside of the manila folder. Detailed journal entries about Elizabeth and images of her broken body are stored within it, something he never wanted to see with his own eyes. Disgusted, he throws it to the floor and turns his burning gaze up to Charles. Elizabeth watches with amusement, a smile never leaving her lips.

            “Niklaus Mikaelson. The Original Hybrid, the bastard that turned you into the abomination that you are,” Charles answers.

            “If I were you,” Klaus speaks darkly. “I would watch your tongue before I rip it from your skull and watch as you choke on your own blood.”

            Elizabeth holds a raised finger out to Klaus, reminding him to hold his temper until she is finished with what she came here to do. She has thought about this moment for many nights and she won’t let this chance go by without doing it right. “So, you know what’s happening outside and you know who he is, I doubt I have to ask you what’s going to happen after we finish our conversation,” she says. “You probably already found out, but I want you to know that Lyanna is dead and that Death will never walk this earth. I have torn apart your plan and I intend to tear apart every shred of who you are.”

            “Your threats mean nothing to me, my daughter. I will die satisfied knowing that I have destroyed you and took away your last living relative. You are truly alone in this world now,” he says tauntingly.

“Oh, you mean Nathan?” She asks, laughing. “Funny story… He’s not dead. We resurrected him a little while ago. He’s a vampire now, but he doesn’t mind. In fact, he’s out there right now. I’m surprised you didn’t know. How does it feel to know that two of your own children chose to be abominations?”

Charles stares angrily back at her, his lip twitching. She has defeated him at every turn. “If you are here to kill me, get it over with. I am tired of this conversation you seem so keen on having,” he demands.

            Klaus laughs quietly, casually knocking over multiple books to the floor as he walks by the bookcase. Elizabeth looks over her shoulder at him, raising an eyebrow. He is unbelievably petty, but she doesn’t mind. He will do what he does best soon enough. Shaking her head, she turns back to her father and smiles.

            “It’s a shame you can’t see how far you have fallen, father,” she says. “The torture you put me through only made me stronger. The cruel acts that you did in the name of science and in the name of punishment are in turn what got you killed.”

            Charles stands from his chair, towering above her. “You deserved what I did to you. You deserve everything that has happened in your pathetic life. My only regret is I didn’t capture you sooner. You are an abomination, a freak of nature. A _whore_ ,” he snarls.

            “Alright,” Klaus mutters, sighing.

            Suddenly, he is standing beside Charles and he grabs him by the throat, slamming him up against the nearest wall. Elizabeth is by his side then and she pushes Klaus away, grabbing Charles by the collar of his shirt. She hoists him up, and looks into his eyes. Only darkness and traces of Death can be found in them and she struggles with understanding how this man was once her father. Feeling her anger boil underneath her skin, she shakes her head.

            “For years, father, you tortured me and called it love,” she says powerfully. “Now, you have nothing left. I took it all from you. Lyanna is dead and Death will never rise. Your work here has been destroyed and I will _burn_ it all,” she yells. “I told you a long time ago that you will endure my revenge and it has arrived. You took _everything_ from me and now I’m taking everything from you. Nobody will remember who you are.”

            “Nobody… may remember me…” Charles gasps. “But nothing… will stop Lyanna’s alternative plans… Do you think this will be over once I am dead? You… think you have won? Lyanna was always… smarter… than you. Another will rise and you will… fall. Your darkest hour has yet to come…”

            Elizabeth glowers at him, finding his voice to be nothing short of annoying no matter how troubling they may sound. “Lyanna’s contingency plans don’t matter right now. I will handle it when they happen. Right now, I’m here to do one thing and one thing only. You are a son of a bitch and I hope you rot in hell for the things you’ve done to not only me but to the other prisoners and to Lyanna.”

            Releasing him, Charles slumps against the wall and he stares at Elizabeth is disbelief. He never truly thought this day would arrive. Klaus walks up to them with a choleric expression on his face and darkness in his eyes. As Elizabeth watches with blithe, Klaus grabs Charles by the throat and he hoists him up against the wall once more until his feet no longer touch the ground.

            “It was wrong of you to believe that you could harm my family, that you could harm my Elizabeth, and live to tell the tale,” Klaus says darkly. “William Walker, I do believe your time has come to an end.”

            Then, in a rush of movement, Klaus punches hand through Charles’ chest and rips it back out with the man’s heart in his hand. Elizabeth stumbles backward and puts a hand on the desk to keep herself standing. Klaus lets Charles’ body drop to the floor like a sack of bricks and with the heart that he holds in his hands, he aims for the trash bin and tosses it as if it were a basketball. Slowly, Klaus turns back to Elizabeth who keeps her eyes fixed on Charles’ dead body. For years she has longed for this day, she swore this day would come for him, and now that it’s here… she has no idea what to do with herself. It’s over. All of it is truly over.

            “Are you alright, love?” Klaus asks hesitantly.

            Tearing her eyes away, Elizabeth nods her head. “He deserved this. Not only for me, but for everyone he has harmed,” she says confidently. “It was time.”

            Although his hand is covered in blood, he walks to her and wraps his arms around her. She nestles into his hold and breathes in deeply, reminding herself that no matter what now, Charles will never be able to lay a single finger on her again. Her terror is over and the war is done. She can go home tonight and sleep for the first time knowing that her life is her own once again. This is how it should have been from the start, but no story is perfect.

            “I feel like it was too easy,” Nathan sighs, slumping into the chair with a bottle of beer held between his hands.

            Elizabeth shrugs lightly, watching as Elijah pours lighter fluid into a trash bin. “Charles had no power. It was all Lyanna. After we killed her and stopped Death, all he could do was sit and wait for his end. There’s nothing more too it than that.”

            Nathan makes a face, but he understands what she’s saying. “I just feel like all we got out of his death was more questions. What else was Lyanna planning? Why would Charles say your darkest hour has yet to come?”

            Those words have been troubling her for hours now. It is not the first time she has heard that phrase spoken. Her mother, wherever she may be watching from, said something eerily similar and to not understand what it means is haunting her. Was it all just big talk to make them afraid of the future? Or is there something truly horrific coming her way that will destroy everything she is?

            “Perhaps,” Elijah says slowly, “it’s best to not dwell on the things that may or may not be coming for us. We all have our suspicions and whether or not they will be proven to be true is still yet to be seen. Death is trapped in an eternal prison, Lyanna’s body is stored where no one will ever be able to find her, and Charles is dead. We won today and our success will only be proven further when Rebekah is revived.”

            Elizabeth takes in a deep breath and she shoots a glance over to Klaus who watches her with a fondness in his eyes. “You’re right. I want to focus on moving forward and saving Rebekah. That’s all that matters right now.”

            “Then may I suggest starting with burning Charles’ work?” Elijah says as he drops a lit match into the trash bin at his feet. “All of the valuable information from those documents have been copied and stored. You’re free to destroy them.”

            Robotically, Elizabeth stands from her chair and looks down at the stack of papers that reside on the table near them. Taking a deep breath, she stiffly holds the first stack above the bin and smiles a little before dropping them. The papers warp and turn black as they catch fire and as they burn, she feels as if a weight of some kind is being lifted from her shoulders.

            “Do you…” She begins, pausing. “Do you want me to help me destroy all of this?” She asks both of them.

            “With pleasure,” Klaus says as he gets up.

            Together, the brothers and Nathan grab their own stacks of paper and unceremoniously tear them into shreds. Elizabeth watches she throws pages one by one into the bin, pleased to see pieces of her tortured time with Charles burning away. Klaus more than happily dumps his shredded pieces into the fire and looks over to Elizabeth as he does so, winking at her. His promise to her is being fulfilled now. There will be nothing left of Charles after this. The ghost of her father is dying out and once the final page is burned, she will be free to move on from this period of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are only THREE chapters left in the core story and then you will get FOUR more chapters that look into the past and near-future (The last four will be shorter chapters and may be uploaded back to back). After that, the sequel will be published and I must say... It's a huge fucking ride. I'm so proud of it and I really enjoyed bringing the TVD characters into the mix. 
> 
> College is kicking my ass right now. I'm hoping, after finals, I will have some more time to write and publish. I will have all of December off so I'll probably use that time for this. Thank you for sticking around!
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos. :)


	33. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running out of things to try, Freya attempts one more spell in hopes it will be the one to wake up Rebekah at a great cost of her own.

> _Mother,_
> 
> _I have sat at my desk for what must be hours trying to think of all of the things I want to tell you. So much has happened in the last seven months since I was set free. I know it’s a bit silly of me to be writing this when I know I could never give you this letter but, somehow, I get the feeling you will still find a way to see what I’m writing to you. You have been, after all, watching over me since you died all those years ago. Regardless, I need to tell you about all that has happened because it needs to come off my chest and all of what I have to say is important because it’s our family’s history. This is our legacy, whether we like it or not. Since July, I was forced to face some of my greatest fears and now that it’s February, now that the dust has settled, it feels entirely too surreal. The fight is over. My family is safe for now._
> 
> _When I met Nathan and he set me free, I wasn’t sure if I could ever find my way again. How could I recover from all of the trauma after all that father had put me through? The torture… the abuse… the invasion of my mind. There were days back in my cell when I had wondered if it would just be easier to tear out my own heart with what little strength I had. It would have been simpler. My suffering would have ended a lot sooner than when it did. And in truth, I’m still suffering. Nevertheless, I never did it. I couldn’t make myself do it when I knew my family was still out there. And so, when I was set free, I barely knew what to do with myself. My life had been taken from me, everything around me had changed. My mind had been torn to shreds and the world I remembered didn’t exist anymore. It was hard and it almost killed me, but I forced myself to find Klaus again. I had to get back to him. For the near-eleven years I was held, he was the one thing that kept me going._
> 
> _I know what people think of him. He’s the thousand-year-old Original Hybrid with the worst temper anyone has ever seen before. He has done awful, terrible things. He has killed innocent people for his own benefit and he has started more wars than any of us can keep track of, but he is the man who I have loved for what surely must be my entire life now. Without him, I never would have been able to piece myself back together again. He was the glue I needed, for lack of a better phrase. For as long as I have been a vampire, he has always been my constant. He has always been the one thing I could go back to when I needed support, no matter how many times we have screamed that we hate and want each other dead in our long history. Without him, my life would fall apart. And although he was a huge part of my recovery, so was everyone else. The Mikaelsons looked after me and they put their lives in the line to protect me. I could never thank them enough._
> 
> _Lyanna… Where do I begin? She was my older sister. Before the Mikaelsons, she was the only person I could count on. . Growing up, she protected me from father’s temper and even though she had been twisted before her fall, her intentions were never to harm me. But she became something else in 1524. Death had taken her and burned away her soul until she was hardly the sister I remembered from my childhood. It was she who made it possible for our father to capture me, it was she who made it so I couldn’t recognize him… and it was she who was the real mastermind behind all of Charles’ plans. I didn’t know it until you told me, but I was always her equal. The untapped power inside of me rivaled hers because it’s pure and the spells you put on me to protect me only made it so much stronger. Lyanna could never kill me without destroying the one thing that made her powerful and I think that’s when I realized I was going to be okay, that my family was going to live._
> 
> _And about her contingency plans... She swore by them, Charles believed in them. Whatever they may have been, they’re out there right now and I know it in my gut that they’re waiting for the right time to strike. My darkest days have yet to come and I can say that now without fear. Whatever Lyanna put into place, whatever chain-link reaction she started, I will go against it knowing that I have friends and a family that will never stop fighting until the enemy is destroyed. My life is full of tragedy but without what I have been through, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wish you could be here with me, mother. I hope that one day, we can see each other again. Our family legacy lives through me now and, somehow, I feel like my story is only just beginning._
> 
> _With love,_
> 
> _Your daughter… Elizabeth Walker._

Elizabeth stares down at the paper and there’s a fond expression on her face, one that declares the end of an era. The letter in her hands isn’t perfect and there are about a million and one things she would have loved to ramble on about, but this will suffice until another day comes. Reaching, she grabs for an envelope and she folds the papers she wrote one, folding them nicely inside. She will never be able to give this letter to her other, she knows that, so she, instead, sticks it into the inside of a small box that she has carried with her for the last three hundred years for her keepsakes. Saying goodbye has never been one of her strong suits but, for what it’s worth, this is the best closure she’s going to get. His sister is dead and hidden, her father has been killed… All that’s left to do is damage control. Taking in a deep breath through her lungs, she pushes away from her desk and is startled when she turns around to find Klaus standing no more than two feet behind her.

            “It’s rude to spy, you know,” she says pointedly, stepping around him effortlessly.

            Klaus watches her carefully as she passes by him, picking up on the faint traces of her favorite perfume. A touch of a smile washes onto his lips, making his dimples subtly appear. “You disappeared. Freya sent me to locate you.”

            “I hardly disappeared, Klaus. I needed a moment to clear my head,” she clarifies as she grabs for her jacket from the end of her bed. Swiftly, she swings it onto her shoulders and she slides her arms into the sleeves, zipping it up only halfway. “I suppose she is ready to go try again, yeah?”

            Nodding stiffly, Klaus angles his eyes down to the ground for a few long seconds. “As ready as she’ll ever be. She is starting to wonder if she will ever find a way around the problem. We all are. Surely two months is enough time to find a simple loophole?”

            Picking up on the sadness in his voice that he tries to mask behind irritation, Elizabeth steps closer to him and rests a hand on the side of his face. She waits patiently for his blue eyes to meet hers and when they do, she leans forward to kiss him. He doesn’t respond much, not that she expected him to, but she kisses him anyway in hopes of waking up that frozen heart of his. “We all know that magic is not an exact science. She’s tired. Have some faith that whatever she has planned for tonight will be the one that works. It will work this time.”

            “And what makes you so certain that my sister is competent enough to do this?” He asks a bit rudely, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear that holds three diamond stud earrings. He has never cared much for piercings, but he is fascinated by how natural she makes them seem.

            Elizabeth smiles almost and runs her hand through his messy hair, appreciating the fluffiness of it for a short while. "Freya is smart. When she makes a promise, she sticks to it. One way or another, we'll figure it out. I made a promise to Rebekah too. I won’t stop until everything is back to normal."

            Because she knows she can't stay hidden in her room for too much longer, she kisses Klaus once more and allows her lips to linger for a second longer before pulling away from him. That same sadness is still in his eyes and she wishes she could make him feel better, but she knows better. They've all been feeling the same thing for a couple of months now and a lot of it comes from guilt. Taking in a deep breath, she looks away and turns on her heel to head out into the hallway where several people run all over the place either carrying furniture or large plates of food. She has no idea who the hell thought it would be a good idea to throw a party tonight. It doesn't seem right to celebrate anything when a member of their family remains cursed. Choking back the distaste that she feels, she zaps to the main floor where Freya waits idly by the entrance gate with a bag slung on her shoulder. She seems exhausted and, honestly, it wouldn't surprise her if she was. Out of everyone, she and Freya have been working the hardest on breaking the curse and it's starting to wear them out. How much more energy can they put into this before they burn out?

            “You ready to go?” Freya asks followed by a yawn.

            Elizabeth nods, making her ponytail bounce behind her head. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Klaus is getting desperate. I believe he thinks we’ve reached a certain level of incompetence.”

            Freya sighs and gestures with her head for Elizabeth to follow. “Like he can do any better. I’ve done everything I can think of and if what I have planned for tonight doesn’t work, I’m not sure if Rebekah will ever wake up.”

            Elizabeth doesn’t show it, but her heart sinks low in her chest. So, maybe Klaus was right in his own, rude, way. Are they running out of steam? Is this really the night that determines whether or not Rebekah will wake up? She doesn’t want to believe it. Gulping, she sets the dampening thoughts aside. She made a promise. In war, sacrifices must be made in order to win and, in this case, it had to be Rebekah. It would seem Rebekah has continuously been given the short end of the stick for as long as she has been alive and it’s for that reason Elizabeth won’t let her doubts get the best of her.

            “Do you think this one will be the one that works?” She asks after a short pause.

            Closing the gate behind her, Freya makes a face that reveals her self-doubt, but she forces herself to hide it. "I think so. Davina and I were up all night going over the details. If we use your blood, the blood of an original, and the blood of a hybrid... plus some herbs and bone powder... It might do the trick. We're also using some blood from your sister."

            Elizabeth raises her eyebrow. "You went to Lyanna? Isn't that dangerous?"

            Freya shudders in the cold weather and she hugs her arms around herself, trying to keep her warmth. "We were careful about it. Kol made the run last night. He wasn't followed and I made sure the spells shielding her location were still intact. Davina thinks that if we use the blood of a servant of Death, it will trigger something. At this point, it's all speculation. We have no idea what we're doing. I’ve been digging into the lore for weeks and I think I found a spell. It’s tricky and it’s going to take a lot out of me, but I have to try it."

            Although the idea of disturbing Lyanna's body bothers her, Elizabeth nods along and directs her eyes forward as they continue to walk towards the cemetery. The idea to move Rebekah’s body to the cemetery belongs to no one other than Klaus. Truthfully, Rebekah’s body would be safer in the compound where she can be looked after and tended to, but Klaus, of course, had other ideas. He and Elijah have yet to stop fighting about it for over a week now. To Klaus, Rebekah is as good as dead. After so much trial and error, he has started to let her go no matter how much pain it causes him. Moving her to the cemetery was his own way of coping. Shaking her head, Elizabeth rids herself of the thoughts she has bouncing around in her mind and she tries her best to instead focus on the task at hand. No matter what, no matter what it may cost, she won’t rest until Rebekah is alive and back to where she belongs.

            She feels nervous as she looks down on the casket. Slowly, she lifts the lid open to reveal the woman who still lays perfectly inside. Rebekah hasn’t moved a single muscle since they were last here four days ago. Sighing, she takes a step back and is sure to give Freya plenty of room so she can do her work. Freya nods in appreciation and kneels down on the ground, pulling her bag from her shoulder. Things clank and slosh inside of it, making Elizabeth’s eyebrows draw together. From it, Freya pulls out small vials of blood, alongside the other ingredients she mentioned, as well as a black marker of sorts. With the snap of her fingers, the candles in the room lite and Elizabeth looks to them all, counting eight to be exact. Pulling the cap off, Freya reaches into the casket for Rebekah’s desiccated right hand and with the marker, she draws a symbol on her withered palm. She then does the same with the left, crossing her hands over her stomach once she is finished with them. Forcing Rebekah’s mouth open, she pours a strange orange liquid in and makes a face of disgust as the scent of it finds her nose.

            “What are you doing to her?” Elizabeth asks hesitantly. This is the first time she has seen Freya interact with Rebekah’s body like this.

            It seems unusual and the ingredients she has for this spell are making her nervous. She doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but it’s not often blood and ground-up bone are used in completely pure magic. Freya shakes her head and she turns to the vampire who looks down on her. There is something in her eyes that would suggest she is keeping some kind of a secret and it’s clear she is doing everything she can to keep that fact hidden for a little while longer. Elizabeth has looked into a lot of eyes in her life and there is just something in Freya’s that is making that feeling in her gut twist into something apprehensive. What is she hiding?

            “I’m preparing her body,” Freya answers simply. “I won’t know if it will work until I try. Just please don’t try to stop me once I’ve started.”

            Elizabeth narrows her eyes. The way Freya is speaking to her is almost like she’s begging her. “Freya… If you’re about to use black–”

            “–Elizabeth, _please_. It’s settled. I’m doing this,” Freya cuts in and there’s no room for arguing. She has her heart set on this and nothing Elizabeth can say will change her mind.

            Surrendering against her better judgment, Elizabeth raises her hands in defeat. She knows Freya will do whatever she has to do. When she gets the sense she is free to proceed, Freya closes her eyes and holds her hands above Rebekah’s chest. Slowly, she starts an incantation in Latin and almost immediately the room they’re in grows a little colder. Elizabeth watches Rebekah’s face intently for any sign of change, but nothing seems to be happening. As Freya repeats the spell over and over again, she cannot help but begin to feel the familiar pangs of doubt. It has been months since Rebekah took the curse and not a single thing they have tried has worked so far. Even Davina, who wanted to step away from all of this, did her best and still could not break the curse.

            At the end of the fourth repetition of the spell, Freya opens her eyes and stiffly drops her hands to her sides. Refusing to give up, she goes for the vials of blood and pours them into a small bowl, mixing them together evenly. Elizabeth crosses her arms over her chest and continues to watch when Freya dips her fingers into the blood and proceeds to draw another symbol on Rebekah's chest. Turning, Freya grabs for Elizabeth's hand and plants it firmly over Rebekah's and then covers them with her own, squeezing tightly.

            "What are you doing now?" Elizabeth asks quietly, not wanting to disturb Freya's concentration.

            "Don’t ask if you don’t want to know the answer, Liz," Freya grumbles.

            All eight candles in the room begin to flicker and as Freya starts the spell over, something begins to feel different. Like a fire, Elizabeth can feel a force starting to tug on her from the inside and as she looks to their hands, she observes how Freya’s have started to glow a dull blue. It doesn’t take her much longer to understand what’s happening. Freya is using her to draw on, she’s nothing but a battery for this spell.

            “Freya, what the hell are you doing?” Elizabeth asks, gasping slightly. She drops to her knees, unable to keep herself standing as the pulling overpowers her.

            Ignoring her completely, Freya continues on until powerful winds rip past them and her eyes take on the same glowing blue shade as her hands. Then, almost gushing, her nose starts to bleed and her body begins to convulse as if she’s in pain. Elizabeth watches in horror, unable to say or do anything to stop this as the spell continues to burn through her. The spell is already too far progressed to be stopped. Turning her gaze down, she watches as Rebekah’s desiccated veins begin to glow with the same blue, but nothing seems to be happening past that. Yelling, Freya pulls her hands free and she takes a silver dagger out from her bag, slicing deeply into her left palm. The scent of blood wafts to Elizabeth’s nose and, instinctively, her true face comes to light. Before the blood can spill over, Freya covers Rebekah’s mouth and she resumes the incantations. The spell magnifies and Elizabeth yells. She’s growing faint from how much power is being drawn from her.

            “Freya, stop this,” she orders through a tightly clenched jaw.

            Opening her eyes again, Freya silences her incantations and just as if it had never been there, the magic in the room ceases. Whatever she did, it's complete and Elizabeth jerks her hand back, rubbing it to try and rid it of the uncomfortable tugging feeling. She breathes raggedly and grips the edge of the casket, hanging her head.

            "What the hell was that?" She demands, looking over to Freya through the locks of hair that were pulled free in the wind.

            Freya wipes the blood away from her nose, but there's no use in trying to clean it up that way. It has pained her chin and drenched her shirt. "I gave up a piece of my magic to feed the curse. I channeled you and Rebekah to make it work."

            Elizabeth's jaw drops slightly, shock overcoming her. She sits up straight and she finds that she is struggling to understand what she just heard. Why would Freya go to such extremes without knowing if it would work? "You did _what?_ "

            "Don't act so surprised, Liz," Freya snaps coldly. "She's my little sister. If there was even a sliver of hope that doing this would work, I had to try. The curse the dagger produces is meant to kept balance. If I fed it something powerful, something pure, then maybe there would be a chance of it disappearing."

            Elizabeth stands from where she had fallen down to her knees, feeling conflicted. She hates that Freya gave up a small part of herself, but she is quite aware that she would have done the same thing if she were in Freya's shoes. Hell, she wouldn’t even have to be in Freya’s shoes to try something like that. If she option presented itself, she would have jumped for it. "So now what? You fed it. How do we know if it’s satisfied?"

"I have no idea," she answers doubtfully. The anger in her voice is starting to seep through, making it obvious that she feels like a complete failure. "She should have woken up by now if it worked... I don't understand. I've done everything I could possibly think of."

            “Maybe the spell just needs time. I’ve seen a lot of dark magic in my life and sometimes spells can take upwards to a week to work. Even in pure magic, there’s no way to know for sure,” Elizabeth tries with an even voice.

            Frustrated, Freya stands and angrily kicks a candle that had been sitting near her, sending it smacking against the nearest wall of the crypt they’re in. “No, it was supposed to be immediate. This spell was the last resort and I was stupid enough to believe it would work. I should have given up weeks ago. This is hopeless. I failed Rebekah.”

            “Freya, please. Magic is not an exact science,” Elizabeth argues. “You can’t possibly know how a spell, a spell you’ve never done before, will work. Give it time.”

            “How much _more_ time do we have to give, Liz?” She demands. “She’s been like this for two months. I’ve put everything on the line to get her back. My marriage, my magic, my health. What more do I have to give to wake my sister up?”

            “Freya–”

            “–All of this is your fault. You should have just stayed away,” Freya exasperates. Tears are streaking down her face and her hands are shaking, wounding into tight fists. “This was your mess that got Rebekah killed. I knew it from the moment I met you that nothing good would come from you being around. I could _feel_ it on you. You’re a magnet for tragedy and _you_ got my sister killed. And now you have to live with it.”

            Elizabeth flinches, taking a half step back in shock. The room has grown so quiet that the sound of her boot thumping on the stone sounds like reticent thunder. “You don’t mean that…” she whispers, her voice broken.

            Freya looks as if she wants to scream at her, but she instead breaks down in sobs. She drops to her knees and brings her hands to her face, not caring about the bloody gash on her left palm. She yells loudly and it’s piercing in the crypt, making Elizabeth’s face twist into agony. She knows the pain Freya is experiencing all too well. She has felt this time and time again in her life, each time after she lost someone she couldn’t save. And so, she understands why Freya is angry at her or, perhaps, the universe. Crossing the gap in between them, she pulls Freya into a hug and she hugs her tighter when Freya begins to shudder from her sobs. She’s angry and she’s upset, but none of that trumps the pain she feels. The grief inside of all of them is eating them alive and it would seem it’s tearing Freya up the most. She’s the older sister, she’s the one that is supposed to protect her siblings and here she is, failing yet again to save her little sister from eternal desiccation. Struggling to breathe, Freya curses into Elizabeth’s shoulder and she holds onto her for dear life, looking to clutch onto something that feels real.

            “You are an incredible witch, Freya. Maybe this spell wasn’t the one and maybe the next one won’t be either, but we won’t stop trying until something does,” Elizabeth says wholeheartedly as she moves her hand to stroke Freya’s hair. “I made a promise to Rebekah and I know you did too. She won’t sleep forever.”

            Freya forces a breath in through her lungs and she nods her head, letting go of her flaming aggression. “I’m so sorry… I-I didn’t mean what I said,” she cries softly.

            “It’s okay. In a way, you were right,” Elizabeth says, laughing anxiously under her breath.

            Pulling back, Freya looks to the old vampire and although her face is a horrific mess, she smiles a little. “I’m just… tired. I haven’t slept for three days and I haven’t seen Keelin all week. I’ve been so focused on saving Rebekah that it has taken over my life.”

            Elizabeth nods, reaching out to tuck Freya’s hair behind her ears. “We’ll keep trying but, for now, let’s go home. You need to rest. I’ll break the news to the boys.”

            “I told Elijah this would be the one to work…” she whispers sadly, looking over to the casket with an empty, hopeless expression.

            “Elijah will be understanding,” Elizabeth attempts, knowing it won’t do much to help her shattered state of mind.

            Freya shakes her head and sniffles, wanting nothing more than to just know all of the answers to the questions she has. “I never should have said anything to him. He’s going to be disappointed.”

            “When I came back home and met you for the first time, I didn’t know what to expect,” Elizabeth begins honestly. “Then I got to know you and you, to this day, continue to impress me with your strength. You are one of the strongest witches I know and we will figure this out, okay? Don’t give up. Not yet.”

            Freya opens her mouth to vent some more, but a sound to the left of them, a sound that only vampires could hear, has Elizabeth raising her hand to silence her. Her head snaps in the direction of Rebekah’s casket and her eyes widen at what she’s hearing. A heartbeat.

            “What is it? What do you hear?” Freya asks urgently.

            Elizabeth zaps over to the casket and she peers down inside, listening closely in case she misheard something. When she hears the heartbeat again, she presses her hand against Rebekah’s chest to feel for it to make sure her head isn’t playing tricks on her. This is too good to true.

            “Elizabeth?” Freya tries again, feeling hopeful.

            “Her heart is beating,” she says with a brilliant smile. “It’s beating.”

            Pushing away from the bench, Freya urgently rushes to Rebekah’s side and watches in amazement as the natural color returns to her sister’s body. All of the desiccation is slowly melting away and when Rebekah’s hands begin to twitch, Elizabeth feels tears of happiness wash into her eyes. However, that happiness quietly shifts into fear when Rebekah’s arm blurs upwards and her hand fastens around Elizabeth’s neck. Gasping, Elizabeth’s hands fly up and she grasps at the hand that suffocates her, desperately kicking at the ground when Rebekah zaps up and out of her casket.

            “ _Rebekah_!” Elizabeth calls, unable to breathe.

            Seeing that Rebekah’s frenzied state has blinded her from comprehending what she is doing, Freya performs the first spell that comes to mind in hopes it will be enough. “Motus!” She yells, holding her hand towards the vampires.

            Rebekah and Elizabeth are thrown into the nearest wall by an invisible force and when they both drop to the dirty floor, Elizabeth is the first to move as far away as she can get in a blur. Rebekah remains on all fours, breathing heavily for the first time in months. Carefully, Freya approaches, but she doesn’t move too fast in fear of startling her sister.

            “Rebekah, are you okay?” Elizabeth asks, her voice hoarse as she rubs her throat uncomfortably.          

            Slowly, the Original lifts her head and she looks around the crypt as if she’s trying to understand where she is. “Well it’s about time you broke that rubbish curse,” she says with a dry, hoarse voice as she climbs to her feet. “I thought you were for sure going to leave me in there.”

            Freya’s worry immediately melts away and she rushes to her sister, pulling her in for a long-overdue hug. Rebekah awkwardly hugs her back, unsure of why she got such a strong reaction. She looks to Elizabeth for answers, almost scared of what she may hear.

            “We’ve been trying for two months,” Elizabeth explains. “It took dark magic to finally reverse the desiccation. Freya fed the curse some of her magic to wake you up.”

            Rebekah widens her eyes a bit, but now she has a better understanding of what’s going on. Slowly, she rubs Freya’s back and sways a little in an attempt to calm her. “Well there’s no need to cry now, is there?” She offers, swallowing thickly.

            Freya steps back and runs a hand through her hair, her lips stretching into a large grin. “Everyone will be glad to see you.”

            “Charles is dead, yeah? I take it from the lack of hellfire that you managed to stop Death from being released?” Rebekah asks, directing the question to Elizabeth.

            “Yes. We killed Charles and sealed the tomb.”

            “And what of Hope and Hayley? Have they finally come home?”

            “Not yet. They’ll be back tomorrow night.”

            “What’s the holdup? Why haven’t they come back?”

            Elizabeth looks to Freya and Freya looks down to the ground, not having anything to say on the matter. Elizabeth then sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Honestly, I have no idea. Elijah said it’s because Klaus is being overprotective. He didn’t want them to come back until he knew it was safe.”

            Rebekah rolls her eyes and she glances at the entrance, eager to get out. “How wonderful… Glad to hear Nik is still just as neurotic as usual. Is there anything happening at home that I should be aware before walking through the gate?”

            Smiling a little, Elizabeth laughs. “Ironically, there’s a party.”

            Seeing a moment of opportunity, Rebekah grins. “Perfect.”

            Elizabeth kicks a pebble that had been resting idly at the tip of her boot and it skids across the stone floor, coming to a stop when it hits the opposite wall of the main floor. Last night was as perfect as it could be. No one was expecting Rebekah to come home, so when she walked through the front entrance wearing a fiery red party dress, she was pretty much a show stopper. Truthfully, the moment felt like something that had been plucked out of a perfect dream. Everyone smiled, Elijah cried, Marcel kissed her... it could not have gone over in a better fashion. A sacrifice had to be made to bring Rebekah home, but neither Elizabeth nor Freya regret what had to be done. In this life, sometimes you have to give more than what you receive in order to get the happy ending you want. And at the sound of the front gate being opened, she knows it in her gut that the rest of the complicated puzzle is about to fall into place.

            Hope walks into the room holding her mother's hand and she looks at all of the excited faces that smile back at her, feeling strange to be home. Settling on her oldest uncle, she breaks away from Hayley to run to Elijah first. She throws her arms around his middle and he hugs her back tightly, dropping down to his knee so he can he on her level. Elizabeth watches with a fondness, keeping herself against the far wall. On the second floor, she spots Klaus coming to the banister and it takes all of a second for him to come down to his daughter. Hope almost begins to cry at the sight of him and she rushes to her father, jumping right into his waiting arms. The joy and pure happiness on Klaus' face makes Elizabeth's heart feel warm and she's glad that, after all this time, he finally has his daughter back.

            "Well, it's about time. I was starting to wonder if they would ever come back," Nathan says, coming up from behind.

            Elizabeth looks over to her little brother, nodding her head once stiffly. "Me too. They should have come back in December. It would have put Klaus at ease. Still, I understand why he kept them away for a little while longer. Hope seems happier and she's safe."

            Nathan goes to laugh in agreement, but one look into his sister's eyes has him stifling that laughter. There's something in her dark brown eyes that would suggest she's struggling with wrapping her mind around an issue, but it's also something that she's not eagerly trying to display to everyone around her in such a happy moment. This isn't the first time he has seen this look in her eyes. No, he has seen it quite a few times and it always seems to happen when she doesn't trust the environment around her. It could be because she's still healing from her trauma or it could be because of something that was said to her, but either way... it's there and as her brother, he can feel what she's struggling with. It's dark and if he looked in her mind, he's almost certain her thoughts would be centered around Lyanna.

            "You okay?" He asks hesitantly.

            A little caught off guard, Elizabeth stands up straight and nods her head, but even she knows that she adjusted herself too quickly for it to be casual. She has no doubt in her mind that Nathan picked up on that. "I"m just... uneasy. It’s going to be a while before I’m a hundred percent again… and I know I should be happy because we got Rebekah back and now Hope and Hayley are home, but..." she attempts, trailing off.

            "But you're still afraid of Lyanna's contingency plans?" Nathan finishes for her, having been afraid of her plans as well for quite some time now.

            Elizabeth nods and she would love to talk about it more, but the sight of Hayley walking towards her has her changing the subject. She, instead, smiles wide and waves. "It's good to see you," she says happily.

            “I never got the chance to thank you for what you did, Elizabeth,” Hayley says once she is close enough. “You gave yourself over to get me out, Hope most importantly. I can’t imagine what that must have cost you.”

            Over Hayley’s shoulder, Elizabeth watches as Hope runs and jumps into Klaus’ waiting arms. The around of pure joy and happiness on his face makes her heart feel warm. “You don’t have to thank me. I did what I had to do. I love Hope and I know how much Elijah loves you,” she says passionately. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

            Hayley reaches out and rests a hand on Elizabeth’s arm, squeezing slightly. “I’m glad you are back in Hope’s life. She needs someone like you to look up to. You’re a fighter.”

            “Hayley, you’re a fighter too. Everything you went through… Between Hope’s birth and everything that happened afterward, you’re so incredibly strong,” Elizabeth says.

            “I won’t deny that, but Hope sees you differently. You love her father in ways I never did or could and against what I would have liked, she knows what happened to you when you were missing,” Hayley says. “You’re like a superhero to her. She needs that.”

            Smiling softly, Elizabeth pulls Hayley into a hug and in that hug, a million and one things are expressed that neither of them could say. They are the woman who fell in love with two of the Mikaelson brothers, the two woman that has suffered greatly because of it. Together they have seen terrible things and together they have grown stronger because of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH!!! Sorry I've been so MIA lately. I'm currently at the end of finals week, my last final will be held Monday night and then I'm off for the rest of December! 
> 
> Important notes: There are only TWO more chapters in the core story and then there will be TWO flashbacks and TWO flashforwards to the time-period the sequel will be held. The last chapter will be a final note from me and then the sequel will be released to you all, starting with a preface to get the angst going. I'm so unbelievably excited to publish it and I'm so happy with how it has turned out so far. Working with the characters from Mystic Falls has been interesting. Elizabeth and the Mikaelsons are in for a riiiiiide. The sequel is much darker, there's more death, and I, as a writer, actually made myself cry a few times with some of the scenes I had to write out.
> 
> If you're still here, THANK YOU! I appreciate all of my readers and I'm so thankful that I have this opportunity. I'm actually thinking about taking my plotlines and turning them into a book/series someday. We'll see what happens ;)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos. :)


	34. Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five months later, life has gone back to normal. Only, when Klaus abruptly goes off on his own, Elizabeth is left wondering what he could possibly be up to.

People walk up and down the sidewalks with smiles on their faces and their loved ones by their sides.

            Elizabeth watches peacefully and she leans back comfortably in the wooden chair, admiring how warm and perfect today as compared to how the rest of the week has been. A warm breeze blows through the air and it makes her smile to feel it against her skin. Klaus watches as the expression washes onto her perfectly bright face and as he brings his glass to his lips, he cannot help but feel that same flutter of joy that he seems to always feel when he is in her presence. Happiness simply radiates off of her, especially as of late, and she has always been that way to him. It’s one of the many reasons why he loves her. She’s pure, she’s brilliant, and she’s everything he needs to keep him stable. He wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world.

            “You seem happier today,” he assesses gently.

            Elizabeth turns her attention back to her lover and she nods her head. “I am. Things have been much better lately,” she says with a truthful gleam in her eyes. She has no reason to be worried or stressed right now. Her life is good. “Thank you for bringing me to breakfast. I know you wanted to stay in this morning.”

            “No need to thank me, sweetheart. I’d happily take you anywhere you want to,” he says warmly. “You’ve always wanted to go to Paris during the fall. Perhaps that can be arranged this year.”

            The waitress who had been serving them all morning comes by to clean up their empty plates and she smiles at Klaus, completely ignoring Elizabeth’s presence altogether. She watches the waitress carefully, not too sure of what to make of her. The woman leans proudly over the table for the glasses and when it’s clear that all this woman is trying to do is show off her cleavage, Elizabeth cannot help but raise her eyebrows in mild shock. This is quite a surprise.

            “Is there anything more that I can get you?” She asks Klaus sweetly. Her voice is like honey, something that makes Elizabeth shift in her seat uncomfortably but not because she’s jealous. More or less because her voice sounds so fake.

            “No, thank you,” Klaus declines curtly. “Just the check if you wouldn’t mind.”

            The waitress perks up again and she grins, her cheeks turning pink. Even in a crowded place, Elizabeth can hear how much her heart flutters at the sound of his voice. It had been Elizabeth who placed their order in when she first came by, so up until now, Klaus had been the mysterious gut at the table.

            “An attractive man with an accent… I like that,” the waitress beams. “You should come here more often.”

            At this point, Elizabeth can hardly believe what she’s seeing. She watches with her lips parted as the waitress then tries her best to put on her best show for her boyfriend. It’s not entirely often, if ever at all, to see a woman be so forward with Klaus. In fact, if she wasn’t so shocked by this woman’s mannerisms, she may even be entertained by it.

            “We’ll consider it,” he replies politely after an awkwardly long pause.

            The waitress smiles before walking off and once she is out of earshot, Elizabeth scoffs and scoots forward on her chair until she is sitting on the edge of it. A large grin spreads on her face at the sight of Klaus’ rather annoyed face. It’s clear he is just as put off by what just happened as she is. Still, it was kind of funny to watch.

            “Can you stop making the locals swoon for more than five minutes?” She asks, giggling helplessly.

            “If it makes you feel better, I fancy another woman at the moment,” he offers.

            Crossing her arms on top of the table, she raises an eyebrow and hums softly. “Is that so? Well, I must meet her. I want to know who my competition is.”

            Rolling his eyes, Klaus accepts the check from the waitress when she comes back with it and Elizabeth all but chokes on her water when she catches sight of the waitress touching Klaus’ hand when she pulls away slowly. She wipes the water droplets from her chin and struggles to keep herself composed because all she can see is the flame that sparks in her boyfriend’s eyes.

            “Do you think she would still fancy me if I told her I kill for sport and drink blood?” He asks once she leaves.

            Elizabeth weighs the possibilities, thinking seriously about possible outcomes. “I think she might call the police or she might totally be into it. She did really seem to love your accent.”

            Klaus smiles softly and he even laughs a little, enjoying this rarely normal conversation that he’s getting to have with her. However, one look at the time on his phone has him frowning slightly under her notice. It’s time to get going. “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” he says as he stands and walks over to the other side of the table. Skillfully, he leans down to kiss her lips once and Elizabeth pulls her eyebrows together, caught off guard by this sudden change of pace.

            “Where are you going?” She asks, saddened to realize that they will not be spending the day together as she had originally thought when she coaxed him out of their bed this morning.

            “I’ve got an important errand to run, love,” he replies simply. “I’ll see you tonight. Do try to stay out of trouble?”

            And when he leaves in a blur, Elizabeth is left sitting in her chair alone wondering what could be so important that he had to keep his business to himself. Glumly, she flops back against her chair and she crosses her arms over her chest.

            “I love you too,” she grumbles quietly under her breath.

            Feeling as if she is going insane, she checks her phone to find no new messages or missed phone calls. Hours have gone by since their shared breakfast this morning and it has been hours since she has heard a single peep from him. Normally, she wouldn’t care about what Klaus gets up to in his day-to-day activities, but she cannot help but feel like he’s up to something different today that would part from running the city and casual murder of someone who displeased him. Sighing heavily, she rounds the corner of the hallway and pops into the living room where she finally finds someone who may have some answers to her burning questions.

            “Rebekah, have you seen Klaus at all this afternoon?” She asks warily, trying to keep the general worry out of her tone.

            Tearing her attention away from Hope, Rebekah frowns. “He was around this morning, wasn’t he?” She asks in return, seemingly just as confused.

            “Yeah, we were out having breakfast this morning and then he started acting weird. He said he has an important errand to run, kissed me goodbye, and vanished,” Elizabeth recalls. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since. He won’t answer his phone either. Do you think he’s up to something?”

            Rebekah presses her lips together, a bit concerned now. It’s not all that uncommon for Klaus to disappear for hours on end without warning, but even she has to admit this is a bit out of the ordinary. Things have been good for them lately and if that still remains true, there should be some kind of logical explanation for something like this. The last time Klaus disappeared, he came back from the Bayou covered head to toe in blood splatters.

            “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Elijah since this morning either,” Rebekah says slowly. “If they’re out together, I doubt they’re doing anything good.”

            Hope plops down on the couch with her homework book in hand, wearing a big mischievous smile on her face. “I know what my dad is doing, but I’m not supposed to say anything. He said he wants it to be a surprise.”

            “Well how come you get to know, but we don’t get to know?” Rebekah presses, her hands moving to her hips.

            “Uncle Elijah said he would tell you tonight, but nobody is supposed to tell Liz about it. It’s a big secret,” Hope explains, shrugging.

            Elizabeth raises an eyebrow, her arms crossing over her chest. “Lovely. The last time Klaus orchestrated a surprise for me, I ended up hexed for three days.”

            “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go track down my brothers,” Rebekah sighs. “I don’t like being excluded from plans.”

            “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit around the compound and wait for something to jump out at me?” Elizabeth asks sarcastically.

            “Do what you do best, Liz. Stay busy,” Rebekah says as she walks towards the doorway. “I believe Nathan was looking for you not too long ago. He has something important to discuss with you.”

            Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth turns her gaze down to Hope who has completely buried herself into her homework. She looks a little more like Klaus every day, but Hayley’s features are still very much present in her face. It’s hard to believe that the baby she once was in now the fourteen-year-old girl that sits in front of her now. For a fleeting second, she wonders what her child with Klaus would look like, but she shrugs it off almost as immediately as it pops up. It’s best to now wonder about the things that will never happen for her. She’s a vampire, an old one at that, and she cannot have children, no matter how badly she may want one of her own. It is, unfortunately, one of the more tragic side effects of vampirism. And if there is anyone in this world who has felt that loss more than her, it’s Rebekah. Smiling a bit, she reaches out and ruffles Hope’s hair playfully before turning to leave the room.

            As she walks down the hall, trying to make her way to the stairs, she feels a hand grip her shoulder out of nowhere. Acting on pure impulse, she pivots and slams the heel of her hand into the person’s gut without much thought or concern for who it could be. Nathan grunts and flies through the air, thudding on the ground as he slides into the nearby wall. Elizabeth gasps in surprise and utter shock that she did such a thing, a hand clamping over her mouth. She rushes to his side and drops down to her knees, rolling him onto his back. He seems dazed, but he’s alive and unharmed by her impulsiveness.

            “I am so sorry,” she apologizes. “I don’t know why I did that to you.”

            Nathan laughs and props himself up on his elbows, looking up at his sister with a grin. “That is probably the first time since high school football a girl has ever thrown me across the room like that,” he says cheerfully.

            Elizabeth shrugs her shoulders shamelessly, a smile popping up on her face. “I’m a lot stronger than I look, little brother. I have over five-hundred years on you.”

            Offering him his hand, Elizabeth pulls Nathan up to his feet and he looks down on her, clapping his hands on her shoulders. For being as tall as he is, she always seems so small in his eyes.

            “I have something to talk to you about and I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it,” he says in a hurried rush of words.

            “You know you can talk to me about anything,” she says lightly. “I can handle whatever it is. What’s bothering you?”

            Nathan rocks back on his heels and he fidgets with his hands, looking in every direction but at Elizabeth’s eyes. “This past year has been absolutely insane. I went from working in a place that I absolutely hated, to rebelling against my father… To saving this five-hundred-year-old vampire, to getting my heart torn out. Then I found out that Charles is actually your father, which makes us siblings,” he rambles with complicated hand gestures and Elizabeth listens, letting him vent to her. “I can’t ever see my wife or my baby again, who she just gave birth to some months ago… And, honestly, I love being a vampire, but… I…” he pauses, struggling to continue.

            Elizabeth draws her eyebrows together, unsure of where he is taking this conversation. “You can tell me, Nathan. Spit it out,” she encourages.

            Sighing, Nathan finally meets her eyes. He takes in one big deep breath before trying again. “I love being a vampire and I’m fucking ecstatic that I have a new sister, but I need to figure out all of the quirks of being a vampire and I need to clear my head,” he says honestly. “I was talking to Klaus, which was weird enough… he came to me actually, and he recommended that I go to Mystic Falls to talk to the vampire that helped picked the safe house for me. Some vampire named Caroline. He said she would help me get used to all of this stuff.”

            Although she was unsure of where this way going, she is glad it was not something overly dramatic when she is already worried about Klaus. Smiling, she reaches out and puts a hand on his arm kindly. “Nathan, if you want to go to Mystic Falls, I’m not going to stop you,” she says. “You were kind of yanked into this life and you’re still new to it. I want you to do whatever it is you need to do to figure it all out.”

            Nathan sighs with heavy relief, pulling her in for a quick bear hug. “Do you know Caroline?” He then asks. “Klaus kind of scares me, no offense, and I don’t want to go and get my head ripped off or something.”

            “Caroline is a very kind woman and she will take good care of you. She’s a good friend of mine,” she reassures. “However, if a guy named Damon Salvatore asks you to go out for drinks, you tell him no and you walk away. He’ll try to make you a drinking buddy and that’s bad, especially if he knows you’re my little brother.”

            “I’m guessing you and Damon have a history?” Nathan guesses, laughing.

            “You could say that,” she agrees with a playfully annoyed eye roll. “It’s a really long and complicated story. I’ll tell you about it once you get your head sorted out. And remember, you’re welcome to come to visit any time you want.”

            “It won’t be a forever thing. Think of it as me going off to college. I just want to get my head straight and figure out what I’m going to do with the next few centuries of my life,” he reassures.

            Elizabeth smiles once more, but then it occurs to her why he was so nervous to tell her about all of this in the first place. She can see it in his eyes now as he looks down at her. “Nathan, I’m going to be okay,” she says. “I also have to get my head sorted out, but I’m not alone. I have Klaus and the rest of his insane family. I’ll be fine and I’ll be perfectly safe.”

            Nodding, Nathan pulls her into his arms again and she hugs him back, doing her best to wrap her arms around his muscular frame. For a while they stand there, allowing each other to comfort one another as they say goodbye. Neither of them knows when they will see each other again, but she knows this is the best thing for him. He can start a happy life in Mystic Falls and she knows he will be protected. Her complicated history with Damon Salvatore solidifies that. They will all look after him and make sure that he lives a good life. No matter what happens, Damon will take care of her little brother and maybe one day, she may even go back to Mystic Falls to pay him a visit someday.

            Elizabeth walks into what should now be considered her shared bedroom with Klaus to find him standing on the balcony with the doors open and with his hands on the railing. He’s watching the city, just as he so often does when night time falls. He enjoys doing it and it calms him. It gives him something else to focus on that isn’t their complicated life. She quietly walks out to him, her feet quiet on the ground that is still warm from the summer sun. Hearing her heartbeat from behind, he turns around to her and she swears she can see the faintest smile on his perfect lips.

            “Come to join me, have you?” He asks, extending his hand out to hers.

            Accepting his hand, Elizabeth takes the two steps necessary to be at his side. She looks up at him and smiles, stretching to meet his lips. “You disappeared on me this morning,” she says. “What have you been up to? And why did you take Elijah with you?”

            Klaus gently runs his thumb over her bottom lip, staring at her as if she is the most beautiful thing he has ever laid his eyes on. Something changes within him then and Elizabeth notices it almost immediately, a subtle change in his eyes. He’s nervous. Taking a slight step back, she raises an eyebrow and waits patiently for him to explain himself. Seeing Klaus nervous is something of a rarity and it almost always means nothing good is coming. She forces herself to remain calm, though, giving him the space that he needs to think about whatever is troubling him.

            “For over five-hundred years, you have lived a long, tormented life. Should you not be picking up after my messes, you are dealing with your own demons,” he says calmly. “When I met you in the forest, you had so much innocence in your eyes and I still see that very same innocence in your eyes today. It was one of the reasons why I allowed myself to fall in love with you and your grace. However, behind that innocence is a fire that challenges me.”

            Elizabeth struggles to understand where all of this is coming from. The emotion in his voice is so raw and that worries her to her core. “Are you okay, Klaus?” She asks, genuinely concerned. It’s rare to hear him talk like this.

            “I’m fine,” he says and there is nothing in his tone that would suggest otherwise. “When I first found out about Hope, I told Elijah that every king needs an heir. It was selfish and awful of me to see my own child that way, but it held truth. A king needs an heir and I soon after realized that a king also needs a queen. Someone to share his kingdom with, someone who can handle his madness and stand by his side.”

            From within his coat pocket, he pulls a small black box. Intense realization washes over Elizabeth and she brings a hand to her mouth, unable to think. Dropping down to his knee, Klaus opens the box, revealing a vintage white gold ring with intricate, beautiful filigree. The ring holds a single center diamond, something that is perfectly sized for her. He looks up to her and takes her hand, squeezing it slightly. Although he may be nervous, he knows this is right. He has always loved her, ever since the beginning. And he knew, one way or another, this is where they would end up. Together against all odds, loving each other through their horrors and tragedy.

            “Elizabeth Walker, you are the light in my life that keeps me stable. You challenge and tame the darkness in me; the devil that inspires the evil that I have done. You have seen many of my terrible acts and yet you have chosen to love me,” he says strongly. “Whether it be because you are completely daft or because your heart is simply destined to love my evil, you are here. And I ask you now if you would do me the honor of becoming my wife? Will you take this ring and spend forever by my side?”

            Her knees feel like they’re going to buckle underneath her. Dropping her shaking hand, she smiles and blinks away the tears that well up in her eyes. Five hundred years of her story has been leading up to this moment and through everything, she knows it was worth the long wait. As he stares up her now, she feels nothing but love and certainty. He has always been, inevitably and irrevocably, hers.

            “Yes,” she accepts. “I’ll marry you.”

            Releasing the breath that he had been holding, Klaus pulls the ring from the box and slides it onto her left hand where it has always belonged. Standing, he swoops in and kisses her lips as if it is for the first time all over again. Laughing with joy, she wraps her arms around his neck and all but jumps upwards to wrap her legs around his waist in a blur. He securely holds her, digging his fingers into her back. Pulling away, she cups the side of his face and cannot stop the smile that forms on her pink lips.

            “For a moment, I was worried you would say no,” he admits.

            Elizabeth shakes her head, gently pushing the hair from his forehead. “Why on earth would I tell you no? I’ve wanted this for so long.”

            “For half a millennium, you have been cleaning up my messes. You have watched me slaughter innocent people; you have watched me throw temper tantrums, dagger my siblings… Maybe the trouble that I am was no longer worth it in your beautiful eyes,” he assumes.

            Capturing his lips again, she kisses him slowly and deeply as if to express her feelings for him in a single moment. “Somebody has to do it. Elijah could only ever do so much,” she jokes lightly. “Besides, I know you better than anyone. I could never walk away from you.”

            Klaus gently sets her down and gently tucks her hair behind her ear, longing to see her face. “Rebekah will be most excited. She has been pestering me about this for a long while now.”

            Elizabeth raises an eyebrow, the corners of her mouth turning upwards. “Klaus, how long have you had this ring?”

            “A century or three,” he admits freely. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe my dear siblings are on the first floor with a bottle or two of champagne.”

            “You told them you would be asking me?” She asks, laughing. “You knew I would say yes!”

            Klaus shrugs his shoulders, glancing down at the ring on her finger. “Well, I figured I would need a drink should it go in either direction.”

            Turning on her heel, she drags him by his hand down to where she can hear the commotion; the main floor. Rushing down the steps, she spots the rest of the Mikaelsons standing around a large table full of several party favors and various drinks of choice. At the sight of them, Rebekah blurs to cut them off and she stares at Elizabeth expectedly.

            “Judging by the look on your face, am I correct to assume I will be getting another sister in the near future?” She asks, beaming.

            Elizabeth nods her head, releasing Klaus’ hand to show her the ring. “I’m one step closer to becoming a Mikaelson.”

            Elijah, from the table with a glass of campaign in his hands, smiles. “Congratulations, brother. You have found your queen.”

            Kol snorts from where he sits with his legs crossed up on the table. In his hand, he twirls around a lit sparkler. “Correct me if I am wrong, brother, but I do believe you owe me something, Elijah.”

            “I owe you nothing,” Elijah corrects. “The engagement happened within the month I said it would.”

            Rebekah turns to her bickering brothers, pointing to the clock on the wall. “Actually, it’s nearly one in the morning. That means you both owe me. I won.”

            Elizabeth laughs, putting together what they’re talking about exactly. “You guys made a bet on when this would happen?”

            Kol blows out the sparkler and flicks it Rebekah, who glowers at him in response. “Soon-to-be little sister, we have been betting on this since 1515. We all knew it would happen.”

            “Yes, only we had no idea Klaus would be so bullheaded for half a millennium,” Rebekah says with an eye roll.

            Elizabeth giggles and gently wraps her arm around Klaus’ waist, looking up to him with the widest smile on her face. It has been a long time since she has felt this happy. She’s finally going to marry the love of her life. After all that they have been through together, she started to wonder if this day would ever come. Now that it’s here, she can hardly contain herself. It would be so easy to burst with excitement and come her bachelorette party, she knows she will.

            "Liz, can we talk for a minute?" Kol asks, his hands shoved deep into his pockets nervously.

            Elizabeth looks away from Klaus and she raises an eyebrow, picking up on something hidden in his tone. "Sure? What's up?"

            "I'd rather talk to you alone if you don't mind," he rephrases.

            Feeling a little suspicious about this, she nods and together they go off to the second floor where they enter the living room. No one is in the room, which is perfect for what Kol has to say to her. Anxiously, he faces the younger vampire and he pulls his hands from his pockets, unsure of what to do with them. Elizabeth watches him carefully, unsure of what the hell has him so freaked out. She hasn't seen him like this for months now and so, to see him like this again on her engagement night... it has her a little worried.

            "Liz, you're going to be my sister really soon and I really need to clear the air before you marry my brother," Kol says slowly and it's clear he is afraid of something.

            Elizabeth tilts her head to the side slightly and her eyebrows draw together, displaying her slight confusion. "Please tell me you didn't do something to piss him off?" She begs, not looking forward to, potentially, another sibling war between them. The last one was disastrous enough.

            Kol shakes his head and he takes a seat on the couch, gesturing for him to do the same. "We never discussed how you truly feel about what I did to your mother," he starts uneasily. "You're going to be marrying my brother and I don't want you or him to do that knowing that you hate me for what I did to her."

            Elizabeth's eyes widen a bit and she robotically takes the seat beside him, taking in the weight of the conversation. "I don't hate you, Kol. I thought I made that clear?"

            "You did, but you let me off the hook way too easily, Liz. I murdered your mother and I never told you about it, even after realizing so soon after meeting you for the first time."

            Sighing, Elizabeth runs her hand through her hair and it occurs to her that he has a point. It tore her up on the inside to learn about his secret and although it is still quite a sore spot, she did let him off the hook seemingly without too much issue. However, she has had well over six months to think about that dark secret of his and after all that she has learned about her mother, it's not as hard to accept what happened.

            “Kol, I’ve been thinking about it for months. Your siblings, especially Klaus, have done terrible things and I have forgiven them. I can’t hate you without turning into a hypocrite. I am angry you didn’t tell me sooner, that you didn't tell me the minute you realized who I am, but we're vampires. We kill for a living. It was a terrible coincidence that on that night, you killed my mother," she says after a deafening pause. "I can't expect you to act perfectly when I'm marrying Klaus. Besides, my mother was an Eston Witch, Kol. They practiced premonition. Chances are, she knew she was going to die long before you knew you were going to kill her."

            Listening to her words carefully, Kol allows himself to relax slightly. He knows things have been strained between them, but he is glad to hear that he isn't hated for his stupid decisions. "Thank you..." He breathes.

            Elizabeth smiles a little and she reaches over to pull him in for a tight hug. "You're my brother, Kol. What happened is in the past now. We can move on from it and go back to how we were. Just promise to never do something like that to me again, okay?"

            Kol nods against her shoulder, taking what she said to heart. "I promise."

            “Liz? The part is out here!” Hayley calls as she pokes her head into the room.

            Elizabeth looks over her shoulder and giggles, nodding knowingly. “Alright, I’m coming,” she says and when Hayley disappears, she turns to Kol one more time. “Let’s go have some fun, okay? We’re going to be just fine.”

            Smiling a little, Kol stands from the couch. “Race you to the table.”

            “Like that’s hardly fair!” She exclaims, laughing.

            “Scared of a little healthy competition?” He taunts.

            “Hell no.”

            Acting like she’s actually going to take him up on his idea, she stands from the couch and on the count of three, she lets Kol go but she doesn’t follow. Instead, she stays behind for a little while longer and she looks down to the ring on her finger. This ring is much more than a symbol of engagement. She knows that Klaus is much more poetic than that. This ring is a promise and as silly as it may be to the prying eye, it’s a promise of a forever. Their marriage will change her life and whether she’s ready for it or not, it’s going to happen. Sooner or later, she’s going to become a Mikaelson and her life will never be the same because of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. I posted two chapters tonight. I may post another tonight or tomorrow depending on a few things. I really want to get the sequel out. BUT HEY! They're engaged and Nathan is going off on his own. This chapter had some 'set up' for the sequel too. 
> 
> The next chapter will be the final chapter of the core story so get ready for the last four mini-chapters because that means the sequel is around the corner. 
> 
> To get you ready, here is the title of the next story: Hidden in the Shadows of the Past
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	35. Always: The Final Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year and five months later, Elizabeth and the Mikaelsons are happy and have moved on with their lives. Still, Elizabeth cannot help but wonder about Lyanna's back up plans and her looming darkest days.

**A Year and Five Months Later**

**December**

She runs her fingertips over the old, worn box to feel the divots and small splinters of the wood against her delicate skin.

            She flicks the tarnished latch up with her thumb and slowly, she lifts the lid as the hinges creak after several years of neglect. She can hardly remember the last time she opened this box and, if she is being perfectly honest, she has no idea if the contents she is looking for still remains inside after all this time. Much to her surprise, she finds exactly what she is looking for in perfect condition. Resting inside, peacefully undisturbed, is a Christmas tree ornament from a time in which her life was a little simpler than what it is now. She picks it up as gently as she possibly can, slipping her index finger through the red ribbon so the ornament can dangle from it. The ornament itself is made out of glass and it was made by hand, something that probably took weeks to perfect. Furthermore, it’s still just as beautiful as she remembers. As it spins around slowly, she briefly catches the sight of the inscription on the back of it.

>             _A promise._
> 
> _-Klaus_

The inscription is so horrendously simple, but it holds a lot of meaning to her and it always has. This ornament was a gift from many decades ago, during one of the periods in which Klaus sent her away for her own good. She knew that she would be spending that following Christmas alone, but it was a big surprise to her when a package showed up on her doorstep from an unknown sender. Inside of that package was the ornament that she holds on her finger now. He made this ornament himself and he made sure that she knew that no matter how far he has ever pushed her away, he would always come back for her. That promise kept her going in her lowest points and as she looks at it now, she realizes that she has started to cry a little. Sniffling, she hurriedly blinks away the small tears that have welled up in her eyes.

            “I see that you’ve been digging through the old storage boxes again,” Klaus says as he walks into the living room.

            Tearing her eyes away from the ornament, she lowers it back down into the box and with care, she rests it where it had sat for many decades prior to this moment. “I hadn’t seen it for so long. I figured it was lost or destroyed. I had no idea you kept it.”

            Klaus takes a seat beside her, reaching out to wipe away an escaped tear from her cheek. “You left it with me a long time ago on one of the nights you left. You threw it at my head, actually,” he recalls with a purely fond smile on his cheeks. “I looked after it and made sure it would never be lost. I know how much it means to you.”

            Blinking away the rest of the tears that had welled up in her eyes, she leans into him and nestles into his shoulder for comfort. She breathes in deeply and catches his wonderful scent, bringing a blissful smile to her lips. Simply put, she will never grow tired of his smells. It’s so uniquely his. Gingerly, she traces the three buttons on his sweater slowly and watches as he lightly touches her engagement ring. The diamond on it catches the flickering light from the fireplace, making it sparkle and glow beautifully. How can a simple rock be so stunning?

            “It’s not too late to change your mind, you know,” he says quietly. “You still have time to run away from this. You might be better off for it.”

            She laughs quietly at the stupidity of his comment, drawing back enough to give him a pointed, doubtful look. “Coming from a man who takes what he wants without a single care in the world,” she teases.

            “And I have. I have taken you and have absolutely ruined you,” he jokes as he leans into her to kiss her pink and soft lips. “You are not the same innocent woman I nearly fed on so many centuries ago. You’re stronger. Still, I do believe you would be safer if you called off our wedding.”

              Pushing him back playfully, she looks deeply into his eyes and finds that he has hidden away traces of honest worry in them. After all this time, he still worries she will take him up on his offer. He’s a silly man. Deep down, he wants her to stay with him because he’s selfishly in love with her even though on the outside, he’s begging her to leave for her own safety. It pains her that this war is still fought inside of his head, but she understands. They are both well aware of how dangerous he is and, in some light, it would be smarter to break away before it’s too late. But as she has said time and time again, she can’t leave him.

            “Klaus, I have worn this ring on my finger for a long time now. If I wanted to run away from our commitment to each other, I would have done it by now. I have been sure about this for much longer than you know and I will continue to be sure about it until we’re standing at the altar and I tell you I do,” she says securely. “I want to marry you and I will. What follows after won’t matter. I love _you._ ”

              “Klaus, I have worn this ring on my finger for a long time now. If I wanted to run away from our commitment to each other, I would have done it by now. I have been sure about this for much longer than you know and I will continue to be sure about it until we’re standing at the altar and I tell you I do,” she says securely. “I want to marry you and I will. What follows after won’t matter. I love _you._ ”

            Klaus chuckles and moves to put his arm around her shoulders protectively. “Your dress is on the way, I have my tux… What was our reason for waiting?”

            “Because we were waiting for the right moment,” she laughs. “Our lives are anything but stable. Hayley and Elijah just got married… I don’t want to overwhelm what few friends we have.”

            “Ah, but you have more friends in Mystic Falls, do you not? I seem to recall you and Damon Salvatore being close,” Klaus muses.

            Elizabeth’s eyes widen for a brief moment, her attention darting elsewhere as her thoughts come to a subtle stop. She wishes he never knew about her relationship with the Salvatore brothers. It would have saved her from decades of teasing, honestly.

            “For the last time, Damon and I were close, but we hardly had anything romantic,” she clarifies. “We’re friends and he will _not_ be attending our wedding. Not if I’m marrying you of all people on earth.”

            “If he’s a close friend, why not invite him?”

            “Because I know how he gets and I know how you get. I won’t have anyone getting killed on my wedding day. Besides, he’ll want to bring Elena and I don’t think that’s a good idea. She’ll come all this way just to be around people she hates.”

            “I thought she was over her grudge against me?” Klaus inquires, his bottom lip jetting out slightly. It’s almost a childish expression but, somehow, it works.

            Elizabeth looks to him with a cocked eyebrow, unsure of how he could that. What on earth gave him that idea? “She may be able to be civil towards you, but you killed her aunt and used her as a blood bank to make hybrids. I doubt she has forgiven you. Besides, it was Rebekah that made her turn.”

            Klaus rolls his eyes lightly at the last bit of her argument, finding it to be more annoying than he would like to admit. “Elena Gilbert was in love with a vampire. Their relationship never would have worked unless she turned. Rebekah did her a favor.”

            “Favor or not, that is more than enough reason to hate someone,” Elizabeth sighs. “It’s not a good idea to invite them. I’m sure Stefan would agree.”

            “Ah, so Stefan Salvatore will be attending our wedding?” Klaus asks in a voice that sounds a bit too high to be natural. He’s teasing her, pointing out the flaws in her little invitation plan.

            “Of course. The second Caroline hears that you’re getting married, she’ll come whether she’s invited or not,” Elizabeth laughs quietly. “She’s just as neurotic as Rebekah is.”

            Klaus sighs, deciding to drop the topic. He then hums softly and presses a kiss to her temple, pulling her body as close to his as she can get. “We can stall for as long as we like. Just know, the moment we leave for our honeymoon, I am not letting you out of our bed.”

            A blush spreads on her face as she cranes her neck to look at him, amusement washing onto her face. “As if you don’t do that already. I’m not sure how our family hasn’t kicked us out yet. Pretty much everyone who lives here or visits has supernatural hearing.”

            “Ah, yes, but there is this lovely thing called selective hearing,” Klaus explains simply. “You get quite good at it after a thousand years. It’s the only way I could stop myself from ripping off my own ears with Rebekah and Marcel around.”

            Shaking her head, she turns her attention over to the three faces that join them in the living room. Elijah takes a seat on the couch in front of them calmly, whereas Kol jumps over the back of the couch and throws his legs right over his brother’s lap. Rebekah, on the other hand, goes straight for the tree and she admires how beautiful it looks. However, there is a look on her face that would suggest she did not come to this room to look at the tree at all. No, she’s on a mission and Elizabeth almost feels afraid.

            “I am not your footrest, Kol,” Elijah reminds his brother distastefully, shoving the feet from his lap.

            “Nice of you lot to join us,” Klaus cuts in sarcastically. He was looking forward to having a moment alone with his fiancé. It would seem, now, that moment will have to wait. It is moments like this when he wonders if he would be better off finding another home nearby to live in where he could get some privacy.

            “You two ran off after dinner,” Rebekah explains with a light, seemingly innocent shrug. “We figured we should find you and discuss your wedding date. You two have waited long enough. I will not let decades go by this time.”

            Klaus rolls his eyes and he rests his head back against the couch for a moment to exaggerate his annoyance. He should have known his siblings would try and corner them before too long. “It’s our wedding, isn’t it? Surely, when we decide to go through with it should be our choice?”

            Kol tucks an arm casually behind his head, his eyes flickering between the couple on the opposite couch. His older brother may have been someone he has wanted to kill on a magnitude of occasions, but he does wish happiness for Klaus and marrying the love of his life would bring him just that. “No, our little sister has a point. You two have been grossly in love for the entirety of Elizabeth’s vampire life. There’s no use in pushing it off. Just get it over with.”

            “Am I the only one who realizes what kind of target will be painted on Elizabeth’s back the moment she becomes one of us? The mere second she becomes the wife of a Mikaelson?” Klaus argues back blandly, speaking his mind truthfully for the first time in what feels like forever.

            Rebekah presses her lips together in a thin line and there’s a certain look of frustration in her eyes that makes everyone in the room shift uncomfortably. “Should have thought about that before you proposed, yeah?”

            Although Elizabeth would love to agree with Rebekah, she can’t help but latch onto what Klaus said. If it were possible, she is positive that the amount of back-and-forth that he makes her go through would be enough to give her some kind of vampiric whiplash. “Is _that_ why we can’t settle on a date and keep it off on excuses? You’re terrified of what will become of me?” She asks, her voice peaking in frustration.

            Rebekah loudly claps her hands together to cut through the bickering that has exploded in between her siblings. She won’t let this conversation turn into something explosive. Not right now, at least. Not while she’s on a mission. “None of that,” she orders strictly. “You two will get married and our dear Elizabeth _will_ become a Mikaelson. And it will happen next _year._ Not the next decade. Go on, pick a date.”

            “September,” Elizabeth says immediately. She may have had a different opinion moments ago, but now she finds that she completely agrees with everyone else. There’s no use in waiting anymore. She has witnessed first hand how easily their lives can be taken away from them and she doesn’t want to wait for this special day anymore. Their lives are dangerous and she’s fully aware that once she becomes a Mikaelson, everything about her life will be changed but she signed on from this from the very second she chose not to run away from Klaus in fear. Nothing will change her mind now.

            “On the fifth,” Klaus then quickly adds on. He has grown quite tired of the way Rebekah is staring him down.

            “Excellent. I will begin to make the arrangements and will put a rush on the dress,” Rebekah smiles, turning on her heel to leave the room in uncomfortable silence.

            When she is gone, Elizabeth exhales slowly and raises her eyebrows. “Was she like this when you and Hayley got married?” She asks Elijah, her genuine curiosity shining through.  

            “Absolutely not,” Elijah says seriously. “I believe Rebekah may have a soft spot for you. You have always been like a younger sister to her.”

            That thought has crossed her mind once or twice before. She and Rebekah have always shared that kind of relationship and she supposes it does make sense why she has decided that it will be her that takes on the bulk of the wedding planning. This is Rebekah’s only chance to make sure her little sister gets the wedding that she feels she deserves. In a way, it’s touching and it almost makes her tear up to think about it. Rebekah has given so much to keep this family alive and strong. For her to make sure that her wedding is perfect is almost surreal.

            “Nine months,” she says quietly.

            “Best be ready,” Klaus says bluntly. He then pulls away from her and stands from the couch, disappearing not a moment later.

            Elizabeth stares at the spot he had been sitting in, not quite sure why he left so suddenly. Maybe the idea of marriage is affecting him in more ways than she knows. Elijah watches her carefully and after listening to make sure Klaus has actually left, he clears his throat.

            “It may not be a surprise to you to know that the idea of marrying you is terrifying to Niklaus,” he says slowly. “On the outside, my brother is narcissistic and he takes whatever he wants without caring about what it does to others but with you… he’s different.”

            “He doesn’t want to ruin me…” she says, looking down at the ornament in her lap.

            It all comes back to the ornament. He may be worried about their marriage now, but he will come back to her. He always does. Frowning, she crosses her arms over her chest. What’s done is done, then. Rebekah finally has a date to work with and with it, Elizabeth no knows that her wedding will actually happen. It will no longer be a dream that she wishes could be real. Her marriage is tangible and at this moment, she longs for the day. In nine months' time, she will become Elizabeth Mikaelson. She will become the so-called queen everyone has seen her as and she, whether she realizes it or not, will become someone else entirely. It’s dangerous to be a Mikaelson and she knows that. No matter what it brings, she will deal with it. Her marriage will be the start of a new era.

            The scribbling on the half-full page of her journal comes to an abrupt halt as she begins to hear something peculiar happening just outside of her windows. Setting her pen down slowly, she looks up from the page and can hardly believe what she is seeing. Excitedly and almost like a small child, she pushes away from her desk and rushes to the balcony doors where she opens them widely without a single care in the world. Thick, blanketing snowflakes blow into the room and she smiles brightly, happiness filling her heart. From her bed, she rushes to slip into her winter coat and she looks down to her feet to make sure she is wearing the appropriate shoes. It has been a long while since it last snowed in New Orleans. In fact, she never thought she would see snow here ever again. Stepping outside with the doors closing behind her, she shudders and wraps her arms around herself to keep her warmth against her body. It’s almost eerie how quiet the falling snow makes the atmosphere around her sound. As her boots crunch on the accumulation, she climbs on top of the railing before leaping fearlessly down to the empty streets. The sound of her impact is nearly silent and as she rises from her crouch, she looks up to the sky and laughs helplessly when the flakes fall onto her face.

            “I should have known you would find your way out here sooner or later.”

            Spinning around on her heels, Elizabeth’s eyes land on Klaus as he walks up to her with his right arm held oddly behind his back. Is he hiding something from her? She eyes him suspiciously, still not sure why he ran off on her earlier. Besides, it’s late at night. Why would he be out here at this hour? Unlike earlier, he wears a thick, black pea-coat and a dark gray scarf around his neck to shield him from the bone-chilling breeze in the air. Elizabeth walks to him slowly, leaving a trail of footprints behind her as she goes. He smiles once she is close enough and he reaches out to her, tucking a lock of her thick hair behind her ear. He loves how pink her nose and cheeks have become from the weather.

            “You look beautiful,” he compliments her. “I quite like the snow in your hair. I believe my daughter would say you look like a Disney princess.”

            Laughing, she reaches upwards to her hair before deciding to leave it alone. “What on earth have you been up to? You bolted as soon as we settled on a date. I was worried for a while.”

            Wordlessly, Klaus brings the arm that he had tucked behind him around and in his gloved hand, he holds a single red rose. Elizabeth looks at it in awe and she simply cannot find the right words to say. She’s utterly speechless. It may just be a rose, but it’s moments like this that remind her that Klaus is not the big, bad monster that he swears he is. This is the side of him that almost no one gets to see. This is the side of him that is sweet and thoughtful. For all intents and purposes, this is the side that drew her in.

            “I was out handling business that needed tending to when I was approached by an elderly woman. She walked up to me and told me that I was lucky to have a woman like you in my life,” he explains. “I believe she may have been a witch of some sort, an old one. She gave me this rose and she told me that by giving it to you, I would be blessing our future with luck.”

             Elizabeth takes the rose into her hands and she brings it to her nose, catching the wonderful faint scent. “So, after all this time… you finally see a future for us, then?”

            Klaus frowns and he reaches out for her, taking her biceps in each hand. Gingerly, he pulls her closer and looks deeply into her dark eyes as if to express everything he is feeling in a single look. “I see the entire world when I look to you, Elizabeth Walker. You are everything to me,” he says truthfully. “Haven’t I made that clear enough, already?”

            Pushing forward, she kisses the corner of his mouth and she rests her lips there for only a moment, savoring how it feels to be this close to him. “Perhaps,” she says quietly. “But I’m worried, Klaus. I’m so worried.”

            He nods in understanding, running his hand through her hair. “I know. You haven’t been the same for a long while now. You’re terrified. Even your dreams have become full of the things you fear.”

            Elizabeth closes her eyes for a brief moment. She needs to let her walls down long enough for them to have the conversation they’ve been needing to have for what surely must be years now. If she doesn’t do it now, she’s not sure if she ever will and she won’t get married knowing that she hasn’t expressed her worry when it comes to their future.

            “Lyanna has been dead for a few years now, but there was just something about the way she spoke and wrote about her back up plans that made them feel real. I believe everything she said, Klaus. Lyanna told us all that she would get her revenge one way or another and… She _and_ my mother promised me that my darkest hours… or-or days have yet to come. How can I let that go?”

            “Lyanna said a great deal of things, love,” Klaus says in return. “She’s been gone for a long while now. Wouldn’t her plans, if they ever existed in the first place, have happened by now?”

            “I’m not sure. Maybe she was trying to sound bigger than what she was,” she says with a light shrug, but the look in her eyes doesn’t go away.

Klaus watches it carefully, analyzing what it means. Lyanna has been dead for a long while now and he understands why she’s fixating on this. Hell, he would too if he were in her position. “That’s not all, is it?” He asks, brushes a light dusting of snow from her face.

            Looking down at the beautiful rose, Elizabeth makes a taut face as she searches for the right words to explain her jumbled thoughts. “I don’t want to get married with all of this crammed in my head. The world that we live in relies so heavily on our emotions. Lyanna and I were equals, we had a connection that ran so deeply within us that it made it impossible for her to kill me by her own hand,” she says. “She was so sure about her contingency plans… She was so _sure_ that even if we succeeded in stopping her and in stopping Death for good, something else would rise up. I don’t know what it is or when it will come, but I _feel_ it, Klaus. It’s real and it’s burning in the back of my mind. There’s something out there and I’m terrified.”

            Taking in the weight of her words, he nods and finds that bond that they share inside of himself. Their bond is so incredibly strong and he can almost feel it in their touch. He may not have understood that bond at the beginning when they first met, but after all that has happened, he understands why it’s so unique. And as he looks into her eyes now, he sees the glimmer of something tragic in them. For her entire life, things have been taken from her and she has fought to come back from it all. It makes sense for her to be afraid after all the time that has passed. Just with his touch, he can feel the same things that she does. She can feel something lurking in the darkness, she can feel the changes in the air, and she can feel the evil forces that surround them no matter how far away they may be. She is not weak or paranoid for continuing to dwell on the possibility of Lyanna’s promises being right. If anything at all, she is incredibly smart. He admires that about her. Often times, he wishes he could possess the level of intelligence that she has.

            “No matter what Lynna may have put in place, we will handle it together, as a family, once it comes out of the shadows. Your sister was plagued with evil and she was complicated, but she was never going to win against us. And I suppose, deep down, she knew that. There will always be evils in the world that will want to tear us down and take what’s ours, but they will never succeed for as long as we live,” he says passionately. “You have _always_ been the one to keep the peace, that has always been your role to play in this family, and since the birth of my daughter, my family has changed to stand for new virtues. Rest assured, any evil that comes out of hiding will be dealt with, my love.”

            Pushing the long-held air from her lungs, Elizabeth nods her head and crashes against the man who she has fallen so helplessly in love with. He wraps her arms around her and as her eyes land on the rose again, her thoughts wander off to some other place. She has often imagined that it would be rather devastating to learn that the world you live in is not the world you once thought it to be. The world is a dark and terrifying place and more than once, she has seen the horrors it holds. Never once did she run and never once has she cowered in fear because she always knew it was important to stay and fight. To fight for the ones who she loves the most… that has always been what she has stood for. There’s no way for her to know if she has seen someone for the last time and that’s what makes their lives in this world so fragile and tragic. Through everything she has been through, it has led her to this very moment in her life and although, at times, she has screamed to the skies that it things have been unfair, although she has lost many and has suffered through things only people with the darkest minds can think of, she has learned to live with it all.

            She fell in love with this life and she chose to run with it. She had been brave and she had been strong, strong enough to allow her demons in. Her love has been strained and pushed to the absolute limits in the time that they have known each other and maybe, in some twisted reality, that's exactly how it was supposed to be. Through the pain that they have shared to the loss that they have endured in the last five-hundred years, they have grown closer because of it and have come to realize that, no matter what, they will always find their way back to each other. Klaus is her constant and without him, she would be lost. To lose him now would mean to lose her life forever. Together, they are stronger. This is how they have always been and this is how they will always be. In love and a force to be reckoned with. Hell, that’s what their entire family is. No evil or untamed threat can take that away from them. This life hurts and it shows no mercy, but that's no reason to not live in it while you can. At the end of the day, there is only hope. Hope is what gets her out of the bed every morning. Every day she faces new challenges, new evils... and every day she does so knowing that she is never alone.

            So, when she reaches out to intertwine their fingers together as they move to walk down the empty and dark streets, she does so knowing that no matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what horrible things come for them in their long life together, not a single thing will tear them apart. That’s what family means to her and as she and Klaus leave the Abattoir, she finally finds it within herself to let go. She feels free. She feels whole. She feels strong.

            “Where would you like to go, sweetheart?” Klaus asks, his eyes holding wonder as he searches her face.

            Elizabeth smiles, her heart swelling from the joy that she cannot help but feel. “It doesn’t matter where we go,” she says. “Surprise me. You’ve always been good at that.”

            With a simple nod, she and Klaus leave the compound behind them in their wake. They have been in love for the last five-hundred years, but this is where forever truly starts. And although it took so long to get here, she is oddly okay with it because she has learned much and has grown to be who she has always supposed to be. Her family is whole again. Always and forever, just as it should be.

            For a little while, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! The next four chapters will be looks into the future and glimpses in the past. Thank you so much to everyone who has read this story. I'll take more about it in my final note. The sequel will be up soon! Keep an eye out for it! I'll be posting it with the final chapter, which will be the chapter on how Klaus and Elizabeth met.
> 
> NOTE: These last four chapters will be shorter than the rest as they are not full-fledged out chapters. :)
> 
> As always, I apologize for typos.


	36. Time-Stamp: Wedding Bells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the day of her wedding, Elizabeth struggles to get around her pressing nerves that seem to make it impossible for her to breathe. And when a familiar face from Mystic Falls visits her, she is reminded that the people in life do truly love her.

Elizabeth stares at herself in the full-length mirror, her stomach twisting into nervous knots.

            She breathes in deeply through her nose and pushes the air out through her mouth. It feels silly to be this nervous on a day like this when she has overcome many challenges and difficulties before this, but she simply cannot help it. For many years has she walked this earth and yet, she is struggling to stop herself from fidgeting with the hem of her old Green Day, cut off T-shirt. Knowing that she will never get away with hiding in the bathroom forever, she takes one last deep breath before turning to the door and opening it up to the calamity taking place in her hotel bedroom. Rebekah turns to her and beams a little too brightly, rushing over to her with an everlasting excitement.

            “There you are. I was about to break down that door and drag you out by your ear,” she says with only a slight touch of annoyance. “You were in there for hours.”

            Pressing her lips together in a thin line, Elizabeth glances at the clock. _Liar_. “I was in there for a single hour,” she corrects. “You’re the one who told me to take a shower.”

            “Yes, because I wanted a clean canvas to work with,” she says as if her reason had been painfully obvious. “This is a big day. You shouldn’t go through it smelling like yesterday’s rubbish, little sister.”

            Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth allows Rebekah to redirect her towards the vanity that sits no more than an inch off to the right of the large window. Less than excitedly, she plops down on the old wooden chair, switching the bright beauty lights on, and she angles her face upwards to her much older sister.

            “Am I going to regret allowing you to do this to me?” She asks anxiously.

            Rebekah heaves her makeup bag onto the vanity and she smiles, a brilliant gleam in her eyes. “Of course not,” she reassures. “Davina will be here any minute to help with your hair, Cami is on her way with the dress, and Freya is handling the cake. You don’t have to worry about anything except looking pretty.”

            “Yes, because my wedding is only resting in the hands of a group of misfit friends and homicidal vampires,” she mumbles. “Let’s not forget, Elijah thought it would be a good idea to put the wolves in charge of the food. They’re going to eat it all before the ceremony is over.”

            Rebekah tsks and pulls Elizabeth’s thick hair back into a sloppy bun to get it all out of her face. “It’s bad enough you were up all night worrying about Nik,” she mutters. “Can we please agree to not stress about the finer details of this ordeal? Your wedding will be perfect.”

            Elizabeth grimaces and does her best to let go of the stress. “You’re right. Everything will be fine and I have nothing to worry about,” she agrees wearily. Even to her ears, she sounds like a liar.

            “Elizabeth Walker, I have lived a thousand years,” Rebekah says in a remindful tone. “I know when someone is lying to me.”

            “Can you really blame me?” Elizabeth asks with a laugh as Rebekah begins to blot her face with some kind of cream. “It wouldn’t be so bad if I was getting married to someone normal. No, I jumped that ship and went straight for the Original Hybrid.”

            Rebekah hums softly, smiling down on the younger vampire. “As I recall, you never really loved another man. Has my dashing brother always been the man to hold your heart?”

            Elizabeth sighs, thinking back on her long life. “The only other boy who I loved was the farmer’s boy from my village who my sister so kindly killed,” she says with a grimace.

            “A farmer’s boy?” Rebekah laughs. “Surely you could have done better than that?”

            “He was sweet. He brought me flowers and didn’t enjoy murdering people,” she defends with a laugh. “Past him, it was always Klaus.”

            “And there was no one else?” Rebekah asks, unable to take what she said for a fact.

            Raising an eyebrow, she shrugs. “I’ve had my share of one-night stands, just as Klaus has if Hope is any indication. I had to do something to occupy my time.”

            “Wasn’t Damon Salvatore one of those famous one-night stands?” Rebekah presses knowingly.

            Widening her eyes, Elizabeth shakes her head. “Can we not mention his name on my wedding day? The last thing I want to talk about is Damon.”

            Dropping the topic for the sake of both of them, Rebekah grabs her concealer and pops the lid off, twisting the tube until enough comes out to its attached sponge. Elizabeth looks at it blandly, not really understanding why she has to be slathered in so much product. She has never been known to do a full face of makeup. The essentials have always been enough for her. Ignoring her preferences, she puts on a blank face for her sister. Rebekah has been bugging her to do this for years, ever since the engagement. It was only a matter of time before she allowed it.

            Coming in through the door, Cami and Davina walk through carrying a large zippered white bag. Elizabeth looks at it through the vanity mirror, feeling her stomach drop just slightly. She knows what's in that bag and as Cami hangs it up on the back of the door, she shakes the nerves off. She will not let her mind creep in on her now. The makeup has been applied. There's no going back. After Rebekah finishes up her eye makeup, she twists around to the girls who stand around idly, waiting for instruction. They make surprised faces, having never seen her look so flawless and full of glam before.

            "You look absolutely amazing," Cami compliments. "You did amazing, Rebekah."

            Smiling, Rebekah puts her makeup back into her bag. "I know," she says.

            Davina shakes her head and walks up to the vanity, pulling her bag off of her shoulder. Inside of it, there is a flat iron and several different kinds of pins and hair ties. Elizabeth eyes the items warily, unsure of how this is going to work. She has a lot of hair an in her many years of living, she has never quite figured out how to get it all under control.

            "You look nervous," Davina points out.

            "Don't say that too loud," she warns. "Rebekah might tear my head off."

            "Fortunately, I am not doing a lot to your hair. All I'm doing is pulling it back, braiding some of it, curling a part or two, and letting the rest fall naturally. You have gorgeous natural hair," she says.

            Elizabeth smiles, looking over to the drawing she has framed on her desk. "My mother had great hair. She's the one you want to thank."

            She stares at her dress as it hangs free of the bag on the back of her bedroom door. Her heart is beginning to beat harder with each passing moment. The elegant dress features a lace-up back that goes to her midback and seamless lace sleeves that go down to the middle of her forearms. The sweetheart neckline is beautifully crafted with crystals that splay out around her waist modestly and she looks forward to how good her breasts will look when she is in it. Rebekah really did know what she was doing when she was helping her design it. The skirt flares out ever so slightly and consists of a high-low cut to make room for her shoes that Rebekah insists she wears tonight. The dress its self is beautiful and it’s everything she could have hoped for. Nevertheless, she stares at it with nervous eyes.

            Rebekah re-enters the room then carrying a sleek black box in her hands and the expression on her face is nothing short of pure bliss. She’s having entirely way too much fun with her little sister’s wedding and, oddly enough, Elizabeth is okay with it. She knows how much this means to Rebekah and although it is at her own expense, she is glad she could make her happy. That is all she has ever wanted for her family. Happiness.

            “Every bride on her wedding day needs something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue,” she explains, holding the box out to her on her palms. “This is from Nik. He wanted to deliver it personally, but it’s bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony.”

            With slightly trembling hands, Elizabeth lifts the lid to the box and stares down in astonishment at what she finds inside. Resting in the center is a bridal comb made up of strikingly white diamonds and deep blue sapphires. The comb itself is no bigger than three inches and it matches her makeup perfectly. On either side of the comb are two diamond stud earrings made with white gold. She can only stare at the jewelry as her brain has forgotten how to react.

            “These are incredibly old,” Rebekah goes on to explain. “Nik has been carrying them around for centuries. He told me that he dreamt of giving these to his queen one day and here you are. We always knew it would be you, Liz.”

            Blinking, Elizabeth feels a wave of emotions slams into her out of seemingly nowhere. With wide eyes, she groans and starts fanning her eyes, doing what she can to stop the tears from forming. All of Rebekah’s work will be ruined if even one falls and she would much rather face death than the wrath of Rebekah Mikaelson.

            “No! You cannot cry yet!” Rebekah yells. “You can only cry _after_ the ceremony!”

            Trying to think of something else entirely, Elizabeth spins around and gestures to the back of her hairdo. “Put the comb in so I don’t have to look at it,” she orders as she laughs.

            Moving quickly, but precisely, Rebekah slides the comb into her hair and passes the earrings over her shoulder. Elizabeth pulls out the earrings she had intended on wearing and puts the new studs in, stealing a glance at herself in the mirror. Her look is complete. Expelling the air from her lungs, she turns to her dress.

            “It’s time to put me in my monkey suit,” she sighs.

            Almost as if they heard some kind of verbal cue, Cami and Davina walk into the room with huge smiles on their faces. Together, they help Elizabeth into her dress and as Rebekah laces up her back, Davina is helping her into her white and silver heels that are probably worth more than the dress she currently wears. In Cami’s hands resides the bouquet of flowers made up of Baby’s Breath, red rose, and white rose that Elizabeth will carry with her down the aisle.

            “I think that just about does it,” Rebekah says cheerfully. “You are a complete bride.”

            Davina frowns, shaking her head in disagreement. “No, not yet,” she says as she turns to the vanity for the veil that sits alone.

            Elizabeth makes a face at it, finding the point of it to be a bit ridiculous. “Do I really have to wear it?”

            “I will totally support you if you don’t,” Hayley says as she walks into the room with a large, red-lipped smile. “You’re a five-hundred-year-old vampire. I think you can break a few traditions here and there.”

            Elizabeth smiles back and reaches out to gently hug Hayley. “I was wondering if I would see you before the ceremony.”

            “Of course. Klaus wouldn’t stop pestering me,” Hayley laughs. “He wanted me to make sure Rebekah didn’t slather you in pounds of makeup and glam. He prefers to see you naturally.”

            “Yeah? Well you can tell him he’s an ass for surprising me with the bridal comb,” she says, laughing brightly.

            Taking the bouquet from Cami, Elizabeth turns to her full-length mirror one last time to look at herself and the woman she has been turned into. She looks perfect, almost like a princess from a fairytale.

            “I’m getting married to a hybrid,” she blurts as realization sets in. Her voice is squeaky and fully of nerves. Niklaus Mikaelson is about to become her husband. “I’m marrying _the_ hybrid.”

            “Now is not the time for cold feet,” Rebekah cuts in. “You have had half a millennium to back out of this!”

            Elizabeth shakes her head, disregarding the assumption. “It’s not cold feet,” she explains. “More like a morbid realization. Once the ceremony is over, I will forever be known as the woman who married the Mad Hybrid.”

            “I think the locals have taken to calling you the Hybrid Queen,” Hayley says with a snort.

            “I think it’s beautiful,” Davina says from the edge of the bed. “Klaus has always been known as this terrible person, but you are the only woman who saw him for who he truly is. You’re choosing to love him in spite of all that he has done because you understand.”

            “Yeah, _and_ you’ve been through so much together,” Cami adds on. “Of course, you’re marrying him. He’s your soulmate, the one you’re supposed to be with forever.”

            Elizabeth bites her bottom lip, trying to stop her tears. “You guys are going to make me cry,” she laughs.

            As the room fills with bubbling giggles, a knock on the thick door has them silencing. Elijah pokes his head into the room and he looks around curiously, looking for the bride. When his eyes find hers, he raises both eyebrows and steps into the room in full. His eyes roam over her, taking in her stunning beauty and elegance.

            “You look absolutely perfect,” he compliments.

            Elizabeth smiles and walks over to him, touching the white boutonniere that sticks out from his suit coat pocket. “I had a little bit of help,” she admits as she gestures to the other girls in the room.

            “Yes, and as your bridesmaids, we have to get downstairs,” Rebekah says urgently as she grabs the other two girls by their wrists.

            Elizabeth watches as her friends leave and when she is alone with Elijah, she makes a face of worry. “Is it normal to be this nervous?”

            Elijah smiles lightly and offers his arm to hers, to which she takes. “I believe all of the butterflies in your stomach are rightfully felt,” he says happily. “It’s not every day that you get married. I would be worried for you if you weren’t even the slightest bit worried.”

            Elizabeth looks down at his own wedding band recalling the day that he and Hayley got married. It was a beautiful ceremony and she puts herself at ease as she recalls just how nervous Hayley had been throughout the entire ordeal.

            “There is someone who would like to see you, though, before I take you down to marry my brother,” Elijah then says, pointing to the glass door behind her that goes out to the balcony.

            Making a face of deep confusion, Elizabeth looks over her shoulder to figure out who on earth Elijah could be alluding to and her eyes nearly double in size at the sight of a blue-eyed boy staring right back at her on the other side of the door. Urgently, she rushes over to it and all but yanks the door open, fumbling through her shock. Had she accidentally invited him without knowing? Was it wrong of her to not invite him in the first place? She knows the answer to that question and the answer is yes. She can hardly breathe. It feels as if her brain is stuttering but when he smiles at her, it all melts away.

            “Damon,” she finally says.

            “Did you really think you could get away with not inviting me?” He asks jokingly, his eyebrows drawn. “I’m hurt.”

            Elizabeth bites down on her bottom lip carefully, but even that doesn’t stop the smile that stretches onto her cheeks. Being mindful of her dress, she surges forward and throws her arms around him. She can hardly remember the last time they saw each other and it pains her that so much time has gone by since then. She truly is the worst friend on the planet. Pulling away, she giggles and looks down at her dress to make sure nothing was folded or wrinkled by their embrace.

            “You look stunning, like always,” Damon compliments smoothly as he leans against the doorframe. “Is that a designer dress you’re wearing? I didn’t take you for the designer kind of girl.”

            “It wasn’t my idea. I let Rebekah plan everything, right down to my dress,” she clarifies. “Are you planning on staying for the ceremony? I can probably find you a spot beside Stefan and Caroline?”

            “God, no. I thought I’d just drop in to say hello. That and I had a special delivery that I had to make.”

            “Delivery? What delivery?” She asks, her voice squeaking with worry.

            Chuckling, Damon puts his hands on her shoulders as if to keep her grounded. "Easy there, Liz. Your soon-to-be husband requested that I bring something for you. I promise you'll love it. You'll know what it is when you see it."

            Elizabeth's face softens a bit and she exhales slowly. Her nerves really are starting to get to her now. "Everything is about to change," she whispers.

            "Oh, stop being so dramatic. Change is supposed to happen. You're getting married. Have some fun, get drunk. You're five-hundred years old. Let yourself unwind a little," he says passionately to her. "You've earned it."

            "Thank you, Damon... I'll come down to Mystic Falls soon to visit. I'd love to see everyone," she says with a kind smile.

            Damon nods his head once and he moves a hand from her shoulder to mindlessly play with a lock of her perfectly curled hair. "We'd love to have you. All of us have missed your face... except for Matt. I'm pretty sure he still wants to kill all of us blood-sucking folk."

            From behind them, Elijah clears his throat and Elizabeth sighs. It really is time to go. Looking at Damon one last time, she smiles. "See you around."

            And just as if he had never been there, Damon is gone. She sighs quietly and turns to Elijah, hearing the sound of music starting up outside. The sound of the piano makes her heart skip and beat and Elijah offers her his arm, silently trying to keep her stable.

            “It’s that time, isn’t it?” She asks in a small voice.

            Elijah nods and together, they walk out of the hotel room and out to where they are supposed to be. At a comfortable and well-practiced pace, he guides her out to the back porch of the little hotel they’ve all been staying in. Elizabeth takes in a deep breath and stops walking at the backdoor, where Hope meets them with a basket full of rose petals. She smiles at her soon-to-be stepmother and takes a moment to examine her dress.

            “You look beautiful, Elizabeth,” she compliments.

            Elizabeth smiles wide and reaches out to take Hope’s hand. “Clearly you haven’t looked in a mirror today,” she compliments back. “You are obviously the show stopper here. Your mother did a wonderful job with your hair.”

            Hope laughs and gestures down the stairs where a white carpet starts and trails out further into the woods. “Are you ready to get married to my dad?”

            Giggling, Elizabeth shakes her head. “Not in the slightest, but I’m more ready than I give myself credit for.”

            “Yes,” Elijah agrees. “Today is the day that you become a Mikaelson.”

            Hope tilts her head to the side, a smile stretching onto her pink lips. “I think Elizabeth has always been a Mikaelson,” she says confidently. “Today is only the day it becomes legal.”

            “You’ve gotten so big, Hope,” Elizabeth says playfully. “Promise me you’ll stop growing soon? I can’t handle it.”

            Blissfully, Hope shrugs her shoulders. “I will make no such promises,” she laughs. “My mother already threw a fit over me being seventeen.”

            At the sound of the turning melody, Elizabeth takes in a sharp breath. It’s time to get the show on the road. Bringing her out to the edge of the four steps, Elijah takes the first step down onto the white carpet that will inevitably lead her directly to the altar. Unsteadily, as if her legs have turned to jelly, she takes each step before her with some level of gracefulness. Her eyes scan everything around her in awe as this is her first time seeing everything put together. The entirety of the outside has been turned into something she hardly recognizes, it’s like it was pulled straight out of her mind. Beautiful candles are lit and scattered about on round wooden tables of varying heights and wrapped around the trees, as well as hung all above her head, are wonderfully glowing string lights that almost twinkle. In vases are bouquets of flowers and at the start of the benches, she smiles at the large blue bows that decorate each of them. She’s not sure how she managed to do it, but Rebekah created the wedding of her dreams and she did it so effortlessly. A wedding in the woods… it’s perfect.

            Standing only a foot behind the rows of benches full of their friends and family, Elizabeth looks down the aisle at the man who waits for her at the altar. He stares at her with wonder, amazed by the beauty of his bride. Together, Elizabeth and Elijah make their way down the aisle as Hope serves her duties as a flower girl behind them. As she passes each face that she has grown to know quite well over the years, she finds her nerves fading away into blissful contentment. Respectfully, at the end of their walk, Elijah pauses and gives Elizabeth one last look of admiration before breaking off to take his place beside his brother as best man. Elizabeth passes her bouquet of flowers to her Maid of Honor, Rebekah, before turning to face the man she is marring today. Klaus smiles at her, unable to contain how he feels.

            “You are absolutely beautiful, Elizabeth,” he compliments.

            She smiles at him, but it fades away when Kol pulls out a black box from his coat pocket and passes it to Klaus. He takes it and opens it, revealing a delicate silver bracelet. Gently, he pulls it from the box and he grabs her right hand, putting it where it belongs. She looks at it and admires the way it twinkles under the soft glow of the lights all around them. It takes everything in her not to cry.

            “Thank you,” she says, smiling.

            However, she then notices that there is one thing missing from the altar. There is no officiant beside them. Silently, Elizabeth looks to Klaus with a raised eyebrow and he rolls his eyes irritably, pointing back down the direction she came from. Much to her surprise, Nathan bolts down them carrying a black folder and he sprints, appearing right where he is supposed to be in a blur. Elizabeth stares at him with surprise, having not expected to see her brother today. This has to be the delivery Damon had been referencing to earlier.

“Sorry about that,” he says, opening the folder. “Are we ready to get started?”

            Klaus nods his head once and turns to Elizabeth, grabbing her hand. Nathan looks between them before clearing his throat.  “Welcome everyone. On this beautiful day, Niklaus Mikaelson and Elizabeth Walker have brought us together to celebrate their love and union in matrimony,” Nathan says clearly. He then winks at his big sister, to which she laughs. It has been entirely too long since they have seen each other.

            And as he continues to speak, she finds herself getting lost in the moment. This is everything she has ever wanted, to be standing here with the love of her life with their family and in the dress that she never thought she could have. As she looks around, she sees the many faces of those who have gotten her here and the faces of those who played key roles in her life when she needed them too. Some faces are missing, some have been missing for a long while now, but she has grown to be okay with that. She can stand here knowing that she is alive, despite everything, and she can do it knowing that she is loved.

            “And now, I leave it to the bride and groom who will now exchange their vows,” Nathan says, grabbing her attention.

            Elizabeth exhales slowly, knowing that she is the first to go. Turning to Klaus, she squeezes his hand and tries to find her voice. “It’s strange to think that the monster I ran into the forest five hundred years ago, the very monster who could have ended my life in an instant, is the same man that I have fallen in love with and chose to stand beside today. Through all of our suffering and our many years of denial, we are here,” she says happily. “Klaus, I vow to you to always love you and be there for you when you feel that you are alone. I vow to guide you, to fill your bad days with joy and your good days with comfort. I vow to stand by your side and to build a home with you. Most importantly, I vow to you forever.”

            Taking the ring from Rebekah, Elizabeth slides a silver band onto Klaus’ ring finger and with it, he begins his vows. Clearing his throat, he looks deeply into her eyes. For a moment, he doesn’t speak and Elizabeth wonders if he had forgotten how to, but then his mouth opens and she almost instantly starts to cry.

            “Elizabeth, never have I been one to struggle with finding the right words say and yet when I sat down to write out my vows, I couldn’t. Nothing I wrote felt right until I realized that I simply didn’t need to write anything at all. Everything I have needed to say has been said before,” he begins confidently and there’s a sincerity in his voice that makes her feel weak in the knees. “You are the woman I allowed myself to fall in love with. You are the woman who has tamed my darkness and the woman who has changed me for better. Through all of our arguments, through the many times that I’ve sent you away, in moments that I’ve nearly lost you, and through the tragedies that we’ve fought through… I realized that you are the woman I wish to share the rest of my long life with. Elizabeth, I vow to protect you. I vow to cherish and to love with you with the admiration you deserve. When you are lost, I vow to listen to you and to be your strength when you have none. And just as you have to me, I promise you forever.”

            When offered to him by Elijah, Klaus takes a stunning wedding ring from him and he slips it onto Elizabeth’s waiting ring finger, pairing it right up against her engagement ring. Together, her rings look stunning and she can hardly breathe at the sight of them. Nathan smiles a little as he watches a tear roll down his sister’s cheek, but one side-glare from Klaus has him opening his folder again.

“You both have chosen to wear rings as a reminder of the promises you have made here today. As we draw close to the end, I will now ask the final questions of the night,” Nathan says clearly. “Do you, Niklaus Mikaelson take Elizabeth Walker to be your lawfully wedded wife? To cherish and to hold, through sickness and in health?”

Klaus smiles at Elizabeth and he can feel his heart beating against his chest. “I do.”

“And do you, Elizabeth Walker, take Niklaus Mikaelson to be your lawfully wedded husband? To cherish and to hold, through sickness and in health?”

Elizabeth’s legs feel like they’re going to give out. She has never been more nervous than she is right now but, somehow, looking into Klaus’ eyes keeps her grounded and reminds her that everything, although it may not seem like it at times, will be okay. “I do.”

“Before I pull the ceremony to a close, if anyone has any objections, please speak now or forever hold your peace,” Nathan says out to the crowd and when nobody speaks up, he nods once. “Then by the powers vested in me by the nice priest in Mystic Falls, it is now my honor to pronounce you husband and wife. Klaus, you may now kiss your bride.”

            Klaus, who smiles wide, cups either side of Elizabeth’s face and leans in close, sealing the end of their wedding with a kiss. She hums in contentment, bringing her own hands to his waist. Before them, their friends and family cheer but she cannot hear them. No, all she can hear is the sound of Klaus’ beating heart. When she draws back, she smiles and she doesn’t try to stop the downpour of tears that fall down her cheeks. She is happy and from now until the end of forever, she is Elizabeth Mikaelson.


	37. Timestamp: The Rest of Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Away on their honeymoon, Klaus struggles with being away from Hope.

Elizabeth hums softly and runs her hand along with the crisp, white sheets, feeling the soft texture beneath her fingers.

            She furrows her eyebrows when she discovers that the spot next to hers is empty and cold when it should be warm and occupied. Opening her eyes slowly, she squints in the brightness of their hotel room and props herself up onto her eyebrows. The room is orderly and bears no evidence of their late-night activities, unlike what she recalls from the night before. The books now rest back by the fireplace mantle, the bourbon is fully stocked once more, and their clothes are back to hanging nicely in the partially open closet.

            To the left, standing just outside of the room on the balcony is the very man she is looking for. Swinging her bare legs off the side of the bed, she plants her hands on the edge of the mattress and takes the time to admire the sight before her. He stands in the sun, his hands firmly planted on the banister as he leans into it. He wears no shirt, exposing his tattoos to her, and he wears a pair of sweatpants that he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing in any other situation. Below their room is the beach and she supposes that he is watching those who walk up and down the shore to pass the time. It’s not the first time she has caught him doing this during their stay and she seriously doubts it will be the last. He finds peace out there.

            Slipping out from the warmth of the large bed, she scoops up his dark gray sweater and she pulls it over her head as she walks silently to the balcony doors. He senses her presence now, but he doesn’t turn around to face her. Understanding what is going on through his head, she steps out onto the warm stone and gently rests her hand at the base of his spine. His muscles tense underneath her touch, but it only takes him a moment to acclimate to her. Elizabeth gingerly kisses his right shoulder blade and she allows her lips to linger, hoping to convince him that it’s going to be okay regardless of how he feels.

            Quietly, she turns on her heels and walks back into the room for the mini-fridge. Rummaging, she pulls out a bowl of chopped fruit and finds a fork in the kitchenette drawer. She knows how much he hates this room even though it’s absolutely breathtaking. As he put it, it’s way below his standards, but he couldn’t tell her no. She had already fallen in love with it upon seeing it for the first time. Smiling softly, she plops down on the edge of the bed and pops of cube of honeydew into her mouth. Chewing slowly, she watches him and she wishes there is more that she could do for him. She has said all that she could, she has promised him up and down that it will be fine, and yet he is still stuck in a state of constant worry.

            Finally deciding that he has had enough of the warm sun, Klaus turns around and walks back into the room to find his wife watching him with a bowl of fruit held in her hands. She extends it out to him with a raised eyebrow, offering him the choice to eat for once. He, however, declines and looks around the room for whatever tugs on his attention. Elizabeth frowns and stands from the bed, her fruit now resting on the end table.

            “We’ve been here for three days and you’ve hardly said a single word to me,” she says slowly. “If you want to go back, just tell me. I won’t mind.”

            Klaus stops searching to turn to her, a frown on his lips. “Why would I want to go back?”

            Elizabeth presses her lips together and she moves her hands to her hips, lifting the sweater up just slightly. “You’re worried about her,” she explains. “You’re stuck wondering if she’ll be safe and cared for. If she’ll be safe when you’re so far away.”

            Klaus sighs and takes a half step closer to her, his face dejected. “I’m sorry, love. I’m not trying to be distracted,” he apologizes.

            “You’re a worried father, Klaus. I’m not going to blame you for wondering about her wellbeing,” Elizabeth says sincerely.

            “I promised to devote this time to you,” he argues lightly. Guilt is slowly chipping away at him now as he realizes how truly distant he has been. “I should honor that.”

            Elizabeth shakes her head and gently wraps her arms around his waist, holding onto him in hopes it will bring him comfort. “It’s _only_ our honeymoon,” she jokes with a broad smile. “Hope is perfectly safe. Caroline and Alaric are taking good care of her and if anything happens, they _will_ call. You don’t have to worry.”

            Klaus takes in a deep breath and although it’s obvious he still wants to worry he forces himself to relax. “You’re right,” he breathes. “I don’t know if it’s my paranoia or if it’s… I feel like there’s something wrong. Mystic Falls… it isn’t safe.”

            Reaching up to cup his face, Elizabeth leans in and kisses the lips of her husband. “It’s the paranoia, Klaus. If there is any kind of trouble, you will know because someone will _call._ Let’s enjoy our honeymoon, okay?”

            Without saying a word, Klaus leans down to kiss her and she knows him well enough to know that this is his way of getting around the topic at hand. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore and as he begins to walk her back to their bed with their lips locked together, she doesn’t try and stop him this time. He wants to feel her and if that’s what he needs, then she will give it to him.

            Elizabeth looks up from her book at the sound of water splashing against the windows. She looks over at the balcony doors to find the skies have turned black and thunderous. Her eyebrows furrow at the threatening sight and she sits up in the bed, her book closing between her hands with a snap. Klaus tears his focus away from his sketch pad to acknowledge her movement and he frowns at the weather that wreaks havoc on their honeymoon destination.

            “Well it appears the weatherman was wrong yet again,” he says coldly. “Had I known he would be so incompetent, I would have selected another city for us to celebrate in.”

            Elizabeth shakes her head and turns to her husband, who stares at the weather as if he means to kill it. “It’s only a storm, Klaus,” she says. “I would have thought you loved storms. They’re destructive, powerful… something people can fear. Sound familiar?”

            Klaus smirks and sets his drawing pad onto the nightstand before scooting closer to his wife. “I prefer storms when they’re not obstructing my honeymoon.”

            Smiling, Elizabeth leans in close to kiss Klaus’ waiting lips. Drawing back, she climbs off of their bed with a large, mischievous smile and she rushes over to the balcony doors with no fear. Beaming, she opens them and laughs when the rain splatters against her half-dressed body.

            What on earth are you doing?” Klaus asks, a bite of irritation in his voice.

            Looking over her shoulder, Elizabeth gestures out to the balcony. “It may be raining, but that shouldn’t mean we cannot enjoy it.”

            Stepping out, Elizabeth lets her arms dangle by her side while the rain pours down on her. As her clothes soak through and the thunder booms around her, she rests her hands on the banister and breathes in the sweet smell of the rain. Two arms wrap around her waist then and she looks down on then, catching sight of the silver wedding band before she’s being turned around by those two strong hands. She looks up at Klaus and pushes his hair from his forehead as it becomes soaking wet.

            “I’m surprised you joined me,” she says broadly.

            Klaus smiles and hugs her tightly, making sure she can feel his warmth. “You never told me you love the rain,” he replies curiously.

            Elizabeth nods her head, her hair sticking to her face. “I find peace in it.”

            “Well, Mrs. Mikaelson… You never cease to surprise me,” Klaus says in a near whisper.

            Reaching upwards, she captures the side of his face and stares lovingly into his eyes. It took them many centuries to get to this point, but she believes that it was worth the long wait. “Will you ever stop calling me that?” She asks, giggling.

            Klaus shakes his head, leaning in dangerously close to her face. “Never,” he whispers. “Not for as long as I live.”

            He kisses her then and she melts against him, forgetting all about the rain and the storm that surrounds them. For everything they have been through, they found a way to make it all okay. Klaus will have his moments, she knows that, and she has every intention of being there for every step of the way. No matter what it may cost her, she will always be there to pick him up and steer him in the right direction because nobody, absolutely nobody, is perfect. That’s what she signed up to do the minute she agreed to live with the Mikaelsons. Without her, without Hope, without his family… he would be a lost man.

            And that’s why her love is important. She did not choose to fall in love with him. Something tugged on her the moment they met, something changed deeply within her. It was not a man who made her into the woman she is today. No, she did that entirely on her own. However, it was her love that drove her and forced her to grow. Every person she has lost, every person she pushed away… It all became a part of her. She will forever be known as the crazy vampire who married the monstrous Original Hybrid, but he has never been a monster to her. That was never his role in her life and she knew it from the beginning. She was different in his eyes and that’s the very thing that brought them to where they stand today.

            She chose to love him through everything he has done. It’s an act many have thought to be impossible.


	38. Timestamp: The Return to New Orleans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traveling back in time, the moment in which Elizabeth returned home to New Orleans, and found out about Hayley's pregnancy, is expanded on.

**The Return to New Orleans (Three Years Before Disappearance)**

“Elizabeth… It is good to see you again,” Elijah greets warmly at the entrance of her bedroom.

            Elizabeth turns from her dresser where she had previously been unloading her long-packed clothing from her most recent trip. “Is it true?” She asks without hesitation. “Is the wolf pregnant? Or is this some crazy lie from the witches?”

            Elijah nods once and makes a gesture down the hall. “She's staying in the guest room,” he says. “Hayley is not too far along in her pregnancy, but she will need to be protected. I have promised her to do just that. I have a suspicion the witches are not being entirely truthful about their intentions. Something is… off.”

            “ _Hayley fucking_ _Marshal_ ,” she mutters distastefully. Slamming her drawer closed, Elizabeth crosses the room and stops only a couple feet away from the eldest living Mikaelson. “And how is Klaus taking it? I doubt he’s keen on becoming a father,” She pries, searching for the truth Elijah is withholding from her. There is a reason why he called her back.

            “Niklaus is acting rather unfavorable as to be expected,” he admits. “However, I do strongly believe this baby can change him. He feels something for it, I know he does.”

            Elizabeth breathes in deeply. She's having a hard time wrapping her mind around this at it is. “You're putting a lot of faith into a maybe, Elijah. Klaus has been on a dangerous course for a long while now,” she says skeptically. “I've done what I can, but even I cannot control him.”

            Elijah nods and reaches out to grab her hand. He carefully brushes his thumb over her Daylight ring, recalling the day it was given to her. “Control him, no. I’m afraid no one can do such a thing nor should they try,” he says. “But, contrary to what you may believe, you are good for him. You keep him stable.  He cares for this baby. We only need to help him realize it.”

            Shaking her head, Elizabeth pulls her hand away and she turns to her suitcase for the letters Klaus sent her while she was away. She holds them up angrily, throwing them onto the nearby desk. “He wrote me letters, but never did he mention coming back home to New Orleans,” she spats. “Let's not forget he was the one who sent me away in the first place after my betrayal to protect Elena Gilbert. He will not be pleased to see me here.”

            Elijah turns his head slightly to the stairwell and he sighs deeply, folding his hands together. “I suppose now will be a good time to find out. He has returned home,” he announces. “Do try not to tear his head off. He has been in a rather cynical mood as of late and I do not wish to provoke him.”

            Taking a moment to recollect her thoughts, Elizabeth walks right past Elijah and heads down the staircase. She listens for movement and turns to the living room where Klaus stands with his back to her as he looks out the large window. He doesn’t turn to face her and she supposes it's because he has no idea who stands before him. She stands idly, trying to find the right words to say. She will not tear his head off, although the idea seems appealing, for the sake of her brother upstairs. She will, however, get some of the answers she has been searching for ever since Elijah asked her to return.

            “So, in the time I have been gone, you have both gotten a werewolf pregnant and returned home to engage in a war,” she says broadly. “Would you like to explain to me why I had to find out through Elijah?”

            Klaus slowly turns out with his eyebrows furrowed, but his face softens at the sight of the woman standing in the mouth of the living room. “Elizabeth,” he says quietly. “It has been quite some time, hasn't it?”

            “No thanks to you. Feel free to put the blame of your temper,” she says casually. “I mean it, Klaus. Why did Elijah have to call me to inform me of the situation you have gotten yourself into? I was halfway through Europe when he called.”

            “Yes, how was Europe this time, love?” He asks, deflecting. “I would like to go back someday should time permit. I know how much you love it there.”

            “ _Klaus_ ,” Elizabeth snaps.

            He will, unfortunately, not be able to talk himself out of this awkward situation this time. Sighing, he walks towards her and gently tucks her hair behind her ear. It has been entirely too long since he has seen her last and although he will not admit it, he has missed her dearly. Sending her away was not a choice he made lightly. It was for her own good. He’s dangerous.

            “I wanted to keep you out of it,” he says. “I didn’t want to burden you with something that will not last long. The trouble in New Orleans will be over shortly.”

            “I could care less about the issues you have with Marcel. You are going to have a _baby_ , Klaus,” she presses. “Hayley is pregnant with your child and you could care less.”

            Resting his hands on her shoulders now, Klaus leans in close to her face. “It may come as a surprise to know that I care a great deal about my unborn child.”

            Searching in his eyes, Elizabeth cannot help but see the truth. Sighing, she pulls him in close and wraps her arms around to his back, her hands resting on each shoulder blade. “No matter what you may believe, I _am_ capable of making my own decisions. Next time you start a war or get a girl pregnant, please tell me,” she says. “Elijah shouldn’t have had to reach out to me like he did.”

            Klaus stiffens a bit, a question arising in his mind. “Will you be staying long?”

            Elizabeth steps back. She keeps a hand lingering on his forearm, trying to maintain some kind of comfort for the old hybrid. “Depends on you, now doesn’t it?”

            Klaus narrows his eyes, taking in her short attitude. “I suppose things would be marginally better with you around. You seem to have a natural talent for keeping the peace.”

            “I’m starting to think you only see me as a tool,” she muses, looking between his eyes. “I’ll stay under one condition.”

            “And what that might be?” He asks cautiously. He never likes it when she is looking to strike up a deal. Most of the time, he ends up giving something up.

            “You’re not allowed to send me away anymore. Your family is my family and I have grown tired of being separated from them,” she says, keeping her voice strong.

            He should have expected that. “Fine. I surrender. You are free to stay with us for however long you like. My family is your family as it has always been.”

***

            “Klaus, get out here and tell me what you’ve done with our brother you narcissistic, backstabbing, wanker!” Rebekah yells loudly, storming into the living room.

            Elizabeth looks up from her book, detecting the hostility in Rebekah’s voice. Up until now, she had no idea Rebekah was even coming to New Orleans to help with the issue they’re all being faced with. “What’s happening?” She asks.

            “Have you not noticed Elijah has gone missing?” Rebekah asks hotly. “Elijah doesn’t break promises and if he’s vanished, that means Niklaus has done something dastardly and Klaus-like.”

            Snapping her book shut, Elizabeth stands from the couch. “Klaus! Get out here!” She yells loudly.

            Suddenly, Klaus bursts into the room through the opposite door. “Enough, with all of the shouting!” He cuts in. His eyes then settle in on Rebekah and his eyes squint for only a second. “Little sister… I should have known. I assume the six dead vampires was your doing?”

            “They were very rude,” Rebekah defends.

            Elizabeth clears her throat, getting Klaus’ undivided attention as if he were a puppy looking at a treat. “Have we already forgotten about Elijah? What the hell have you done to him, Klaus?”

            “Elijah doesn’t welsh on promises,” Rebekah reminds him coldly. “What did you do to him?”

            Putting the pieces of the story together in her head at an alarmingly fast rate, Elizabeth balls her hands into tight fists. “Tell me you didn’t dagger him _again_?”

            Klaus makes a slight face of discomfort as her anger splashes onto him and Elizabeth can only scoff. She would like to say that she’s surprised by his ridiculous actions, but she stopped being surprised by things like this centuries ago.

            “Unbelievable,” she mutters. “You never change, do you?”

            “On the contrary, he is perfectly safe,” Klaus defends.

            “Safe? You stuck him in a box!” She yells, the blood rushing to her eyes as her anger begins to bubble just beneath the surface of her skin. Hayley, who hangs in the background, widens her eyes in shock. She has never seen someone be so upfront and brave around Klaus. Most people, he would have killed by now for acting this way. “How can you not see the issue with trading Elijah over?”

            “I did what I had to do get Marcel to trust me,” Klaus seethes.

            “Elijah is not some pawn you can just use in a war to win, Niklaus,” Rebekah snaps.

            Elizabeth glares at the man before her, unsure of how he can remain so dense after everything they’ve been through together. “He doesn’t get it and he never will. Hell, if I were an Original, he’d probably try to stick me in a box by now too.”

            Klaus sighs, his eyes flickering away from hers. “Elizabeth, please… I know–”

            “–I don’t want to hear it,” she interrupts. “You either get him back or I will do it myself.”

            And as she walks away without another word, she knows what she said stuck. She doesn’t care if it will cause problems with Marcel or not. Elijah doesn’t deserve this and she won’t let Klaus get away with using him again. Not now, not ever again.


	39. Timestamp: The Year Everything Changed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traveling even further back in time, Elizabeth meets Niklaus Mikaelson for the first time.

**1515**

            Nearly tripping over another rock, she sighs as she begins to grow frustrated with hardly being able to see under the dull glow of the moonlight. Looking over her shoulder, she searches the darkness for her sister who follows ten feet behind her with a troubled and terrified expression frozen on her face. Elizabeth presses her lips together in a thin line as she turns back to the hardly existent path in front of her. It’s no secret that they are considerably lost and she honestly has no real point of direction to choose from. Turning back now could lead them even deeper into the forest than they already are. Sooner or later, she hopes they will come across the next village.

            “Come along, sister,” Elizabeth calls. “Best not to stray too far behind.”

            “Keep it down, will you?” Lyanna snaps in a loud whisper. “You know what kind of terrible creatures lurk in the forests. I do not wish to draw their attention.”

            Elizabeth smiles and hums softly, stepping over a fallen log. “Sister, it may terrify you to know that those creatures that you fear are probably already watching us,” she says with a smile. “Besides, you are a well-practiced and powerful witch. Surely you can handle any creature that comes our way?”

            “How can you be so calm?” Lyanna asks a bit louder, put off by the lack of fear her sister seems to possess.

            “I am calm because I simply choose to be. If there are things truly lurking in these woods, then so be it. There’s no use in being afraid, now is there? Either I will die or I will not. The creatures are already out there. There is simply nothing to be done about it other than to accept the truth,” she explains. “Mother taught us to be in control of our own fear when we were young. I suppose her lesson stuck.”

            “I must have missed that lesson,” Lyanna mumbles.

            The black boots that Elizabeth wears have started to make her feet ache and her ribs are screaming for her to remove her corset. It’s due time that she takes it all off, but she will not simply set up camp in the middle of the foggy forest while her sister remains incapable of not complaining for more than five minutes. Even so, after all of the stories she has heard and after all that she has witnessed, she should hope she knows better than to do such a thing. It’s not safe out here. Pausing, Elizabeth reaches down and grabs large fistfuls of her dress to give her legs enough freedom to climb over a fallen tree. At the near-silent sound of a twig snapping and a subtle whoosh, she jumps with momentary fear. Looking behind her, she can no longer see Lyanna. Holding her breath, she turns around to scan the darkened area, searching for any signs of her sister and as she expected, she comes up hopelessly empty. Lyanna has simply vanished. Huffing, Elizabeth squints her eyes. That is awfully peculiar.

            “Hello, love,” a voice says from behind.

            Whirling back around, Elizabeth comes face to face with a man who casually leans up against the trunk of a tree she stands near. He wears a kind smile on his face and his hands are folded in front of him in a proper manner, disguising his true intentions. She stares into his blue eyes and quickly begins to recognize who this man is. He is one of the monsters that linger in the forest, one of the very same monsters that terrorize the villages and burned the one she once lived in to the ground. This monster took everything away from her, whether he knows it now or not. Squinting slightly, she takes in a deep breath and recalls her mother’s lesson. Being afraid only means she will suffer twice. Even if she had the choice, she’s not sure if she would be afraid right now as it is. She doesn’t feel anything in his presence. No fear, no blood-curdling terror…

            “Good evening, sir,” she greets kindly.

            The man tilts his head, all amusement washing away from his face as if it had never been there to begin with. Pushing away from the tree, he takes a couple of steps forward to be closer to her. In the silence of the forest, he can hear her heart beating her chest and it disturbs him to hear how calm it is. She is not afraid of him, nor would it seem she plans to be. She is perfectly at peace.

            “Now, what is a beautiful woman like you doing out in the middle of the forest so late?” He asks, his true face beginning to expose itself to her. “You know how dangerous it is to be alone out here…”

            She stares into his inhuman eyes, tilting her head to the side ever so slightly. She had never seen something so unique before and that revelation alone brings about a confliction in her mind. She has seen vampires before, but there is something within the eyes of this one that she finds to be rather subtle and easy for her to read. It’s something that he’s trying not to show her and she doubts he wants anyone to see it. It’s private, something that makes him vulnerable and capable of human emotion.

            “My sister and I got quite turned around a few paces back,” she explains after a long pause. “Would you be so kind as to point us in the direction of the nearest town?”

            In his bewilderment, the man draws his eyebrows together. How is it possible that this woman simply refuses to show him the fear he craves to see? Surely it must be within her somewhere, hidden behind this façade she seems so keen on acting upon. Sensing that he may have to take other routes, he hides his true face and stares curiously into her stunningly dark eyes. The confusion he feels for her bravery rivals his thirst and he suspects that it may be winning.

            “Have you got a name?” He asks her, needing to know more.

            Elizabeth nods her head, her loose curls bouncing from where she has them pinned and braided up. “My name is Elizabeth Walker. My sister, who I presume is somewhere nearby with your sibling, is Lyanna Walker,” she responds fearlessly.

            Taking yet another step closer to her, the man unfolds his hands and allows them to dangle at his sides as he continues to assess her. It would be so easy for him to tear her heart out or to plunge his fangs into her delicate neck, but he refrains from doing such terrible things. There is a battle brewing within him now, fueled by her presence and the kindness of her voice. The exciting hunt that he had been hoping to have tonight is long lost in the back of his mind now, unable to thrive through the shadow this woman has cast. Something is tugging on him and there’s something special about this woman that he can’t place. It’s unlike anything he has ever felt before in the presence of a human.

            “You know who I am,” he muses and he doesn’t have to ask her to know that it’s true. He can see it in the way she looks at him.

            “I’ve heard about you, yes,” she says with another nod. “I believe you are Niklaus, your brother is Elijah. No one has seen her for years, but you do have a sister named Rebekah.”

            Klaus smiles softly and leans forward, crossing into her already invaded personal space. Elizabeth chooses not to react to his closeness and instead lets her dress out of her tight grasp to rest on the forest floor. The moonlight catches the necklace she wears around her neck that has a single pendant hanging from the delicate chain, the first letter of her last name. Klaus looks at it intently, his curiosity and need to know more about this woman burning a hole in his mind. Why is she not afraid of him? Unlike her, most would have been screaming by now. In fact, most would have been dead upon seconds of their meeting and yet here she stands. Fearless and recklessly brave. She is challenging him.

            “Well, you seem to know a great deal about my family and if that is true, then you must know what we are, Miss Elizabeth Walker,” he says as his eyes travel over her face to admire her radiant beauty.

            Elizabeth looks deeply into the eyes that pry back at her and she struggles with the conflicting thoughts in her head. She should be terrified of this man – she should be running away and screaming for her life – but she cannot find a single trace of fear within herself. It’s simply not there. Niklaus is known for the many terrible things he has done and yet, when she looks into his waiting and oddly patient eyes, she cannot see a monster. She instead sees the man he hides within himself and the man he tries to so hard not to be for his own security. There is a man hiding behind his evil that is afraid and longs to be loved, a man who cannot trust happiness and never wants to be alone.

            “I know well of what you are. My father was a witch before he was killed,” she agrees with an unwavering voice. “You are what the people in my village called The Original. You and your siblings are the first vampires, the oldest to ever exist. The Mikaelsons. A supposed myth.”

            This perplexes Klaus even further than he already had been. He cannot understand why this woman is not afraid of him. Up until now, all of his previous prey had been too terrified to speak his name let alone hold a conversation with him. She hardly shows any real concern for her sister, who is surely being fed on as they speak so casually. For some unknown reason, he is deeply intrigued by her and he thirsts to know more about her. In the moonlight, her skin is pale and her eyes are dark… she carries a strong beauty and it occurs to him that he has heard stories about the Walker Sisters. He simply refused to acknowledge their existence up until this very moment, disregarded anything that had to do with them. He _wants_ to feed on her blood, but something is tugging on him from deep within. He cannot, nor will he ever harm this woman. It's out of his hands now. Whatever is inside of her that he feels has taken control. She’s too innocent, too perfect to him.

            “You spoke of your village as if it no longer stands,” he says after a while. “Did something happen to it?”

            Elizabeth presses her lips together in a thin line and gestures in the general direction of where she came from. “It was thought that your family burnt my village to the ground two years ago, killing my father. Lyanna and I escaped and went to the next village over. We made a name for ourselves to survive on our own.”

            “Yes, I have heard your surname spoken by many townsfolk,” Klaus says. He then turns to face the deep forest. “Elijah, I do suggest you stop feeding on Lyanna. I would like to keep that one alive.” Turning back to Elizabeth, Klaus smiles and points north. “You will find the next town that way. I will gladly escort you and your sister there if you wish.”

            He’s sparring her, daring her to do something. Exhaling slowly, Elizabeth nods. “I would appreciate that. Thank you for being so kind.”

            “Do not thank me yet, Elizabeth,” he warns darkly. “There is still plenty of time for me to change my mind. I believe your blood would taste wonderful on my tongue.”

            Elizabeth does her best to hide her disgust. At least now she knows she can still react rationally. She’s currently standing in the face of a monster and does not feel a single impulse to run for her life. She feels safe in his presence.

            “Would you care to tell me why you and your sister are traipsing through the forest at this hour?” Klaus asks as they begin to walk.

            Unsure of how she should go about phrasing this, Elizabeth furrows her eyebrows. “Lyanna got into some trouble. I thought it best to leave before it turned into something it didn’t have to be.”

            If these women are running from trouble, then he would like to know about it. Pausing, Klaus knows she will never willingly tell him the truth. Forcing her to stop, he looks deeply into her eyes until he knows he has her undying attention. “Tell me why you and your sister are running. What has she done? Why are you making the decisions?”

            Elizabeth blinks, finding her mouth moving without her telling it to. “Lyanna is a troubled witch. She accidentally killed the farmer’s boy… I decided that it would be best for us to move so she can clear her head. She means no harm.”

            “And are you not also a practicing witch?” He then asks, tilting her chin upwards.

            “I never tapped into our family’s magic. I have always been too busy looking after Lyanna,” she says honestly.

            Klaus hums softly, weighing the many possibilities in his mind. Releasing her, he smiles. “Forget I asked you anything.”

            Elizabeth blinks, slightly dazed by the encounter. Shaking the feeling, she resumes walking. “As Lyanna and I will be new to this town, we will be needed a place to stay,” she says lightly. “Could you recommend a suitable Inn for us?”

            Klaus smirks and briefly looks back at his older brother, who appears to be several confused as they why they are keeping these girls by their sides. “Yes, I think it would be best if you and your sister lived with my family. We would be more than happy to open our doors to you.”

            Elijah opens his mouth to protest, who appeared out of nowhere with Lyanna, but Klaus waves him off. He knows how dangerous it is to have humans living in their home, but he _will_ have the Walker Sisters living under his roof whether Elijah likes it or not. Meanwhile, Elizabeth looks to Lyanna who nods her head. Her older sister seems dazed but sure of herself. Turning back to face the path in front of her, she unknowingly has agreed to a life full of tragedy.


	40. A Final Author's Note

Dear Readers,

           Thank you all so much for taking this journey with me. This series has been in the making since early 2018 and now that **Hidden in the Shadows of Tragedy** is done, I can hardly believe it. During the writing, there were moments when I wondered if it would even be possible to finish this story and here it is... completed. Initially, I had no intention of posting a sequel but I decided towards the end of the writing for this fic that Elizabeth's story wasn't done yet. This entire story has been one large build-up for the things coming in the sequel and as I have mentioned prior in my notes, the sequel is **much** darker and deals with more tragic themes. If you are eager to get started, then go for it! It's published now. Even if you choose to not read the next story, I still want to thank you. My writing is not perfect and yet, some of you chose to stay to the end. Thank you all a million times over. Being a dyslexic writer sucks, but I make it work. If this is the last time I'm seeing you, then I hope you all will go on and live happy lives. If you're going on to the next story, then I'll see you there. 

Thank you for being awesome, 

           -Jade Williams


End file.
